Good Enough
by Amber6
Summary: Jate... Kate's past continues to haunt her, and when the worst thing of all occurs, Jack has to find a way to lead her back...
1. Chapter 1

**Good Enough - Chapter One**  
_3/10/5_

It was morning. She didn't know the exact time, but time mattered less and less on the island and few of them wore watches anymore; morning begun when the sun rose and bed time occurred when each survivor's tiredness gradually washed over them in the firelight and story exchange. She knew it was early; the sun had not yet peeped above the horizon and the sky was still yawning under flickering eyes. Kate groaned, rolled over gingerly so not to fall off her perch upon three plane seats and grabbed the water bottle from beside her backpack. It was coated in sand, like everything else she owned; but there was no point in worrying or complaining so no-one did.

She sat up and roughly folded the standard issue Oceanic Airlines plane blankets that served as a duvet and pillows. Her hair hung in delicate tendrils around her face and Kate swept it back into an unkempt ponytail before pouring a small amount of the water into her hands, to rub over her face to wash away the sleep and remnants of the night. Glancing around, she could see the other beach dwellers were still deep in sleep; Sawyer hidden behind his tarpaulin, Michael and Walt lying off to one side with Walt's arm lying lovingly over Vincent. Wearing the same clothes she had slept in, Kate grabbed her toothbrush and miniature toothpaste, plus the water bottle and a couple of passion fruit she had picked the day before. No need for shoes when you're living on a beach, she thought as she wandered out of the main camp and made tracks in the sand, like a path for another to follow.

Later she would wonder if she had subconsciously known to halt where she did, but after five minutes or so Kate stopped by the shoreline and took the little generic tube from her pocket and proceeded to brush her teeth. She spat into the sea and washed her mouth out with the fresh water from the caves, and spat again. And it was then the sun crept over the waves, an orange arc of light flickering the sky with the pink and gold of dawn; and it was then the silence was broken. 

"Click." She could hear the smile in his voice as he said it. Kate turned to see Jack standing just beyond the treeline, having emerged from the jungle exactly opposite to where she stood. He had his hands out, framing the image of Kate standing at the water's edge as the sun greeted the day. He wore ripped jeans and a blue checked shirt she hadn't seen on him before. "Morning stranger." He joked as he made his way over to the water.

"Hey." She smiled sleepily. "And I thought it was just me who woke this early, huh?"

"Mmm, 'fraid not." Jack slung his half empty bag down between them. "Couldn't sleep?" He sat down in the sand and Kate followed suit, offering him a passion fruit and using a small penknife to cut open their breakfast.

"Kinda… I don't know. Can't seem to get beyond the sunrise at the moment, something always wakes me. Which is a very bad routine to be getting into since it's not exactly like I've got a 9-5 job to be getting to." She gave a small grin and bit into the fruit. "You?"

"Aw, ya know… I've gotta go for my early morning run before work and then down a grande double expresso shot Americano before getting to the office…"

"But of course." Their eyes met and Jack winked. Kate felt her heart miss a beat, like it always did when he gave her that face, that face reserved for her; when Jack forgot for just a second all the pressure and responsibility placed upon his shoulders and just let himself enjoy these moments. His eyes would crease up a little and fill with light, his shoulders would relax and just occasionally she'd get a smile, like a reward or a shared secret. Kate loved these moments, but they were so few and far between; with Jack at the caves and her at the beach, and his endless work schedule and the tension that seemed to sometimes creep between them… that tension that felt like a spark in the air, like the nervousness of a first date. She didn't tell him the reason she didn't want to move to the caves was because she was afraid she'd screw him up. She didn't tell him how scared she was, how much strength she made up, of how even here she couldn't look in a mirror without wishing there was someone else staring back at her. 

"So what's the grand plan for today then?" Jack broke her train of thought and brought her back to reality from the reverie that was about to spin off course. "Is it gardening, trekking or fruit picking?"

"My life's that boring huh?" She played with a twig in the sand, writing her name like an engraving. "Just 'cause I'm not stitching wounds with cotton thread or in any plane crashes today, I'll have you know I'm a very busy girl."

"Right."

"Yup."

"And this busy girl would be doing what…?"

Kate leapt up and mischievously pushed him over, covering Jack's new shirt with sand. ""I'm sorry, but I'm just too busy to tell you right now." She ran a few metres up the beach and turned around, a grin on her face as he stared after her as she knew he would. Jack rolled on to his front in the sand, his feet dangling precariously close to the water's edge. He watched as Kate walked backwards along the beach for a few strides, taking in her image, the way her hair framed her face, the graceful arc of her foot as she took step after step. He shook his head, trying to do away with the ideas forming. She called out to him as she retreated, "But… if you've time later to teach me a thing or two up on Hurley's golf course, I'll be by the caves after lunch."

"Uh huh? After beating me up you want my help now?" Jack pushed himself to standing and glanced down pointedly at his considerably sandy attire. "And now will I actually be teaching golf on the golf course or something else?" As soon as the words had left his mouth, Jack regretted saying it. This was Kate, why was he flirting? Things on the island were already complicated enough. He could feel his cheeks burning red as he watched hers do the same, but her answer caught him by surprise.

"You decide." And with that she turned and jogged gracefully down the beach, sand kicked up with each stride. Why couldn't it be like that all the time? Why did she always feel so secure when Jack was there, why couldn't she tell him her fears, why did she run from him and long for him in equal measure? The questions filtered through Kate's mind as she ran. She blinked firmly and in her mind took a picture she never could have seen; of the two of them sitting there, the only ones awake, sharing jokes as the sun split the sky as though neither had a care in the world. She framed it and saved it to the back of her mind, for a rainy day or more likely, for when the tension surfaced again, because of her insecurities or because he was too good to her when deep down she knew she didn't deserve it.

_I know that I'll never be alone  
You will never let me go  
You are my anchor  
Hold my hand  
While I'm sinking in the sand  
No one else could understand  
You are my anchor_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two** - _Fears That Just Won't Fade  
4/10/5_

There was no pressing urgency to return to the caves, so Jack deliberately wandered off course in the jungle whilst picking some guava and papaya for Kate and him to enjoy later. He liked to get lost on the island once in a while, nothing too far from the main trails but just enough to map a couple of extra miles of land; find a new fruit to try or herb to pass on to Sun for her ever-expanding garden, or occasionally stumble across a new piece of fuselage; a suitcase, a child's toy, a photo. He was reaching for a particularly ripe papaya on a mature tree when his bare foot found contact with something other than dirt or shrubbery; a woven fabric, damp but distinctly manmade. He carefully lowered the fruit to his rapidly-filling rucksack and stepped back again to find a small black tote bag hidden amongst the tree roots; evidently tossed from the shattering plane as he himself had been, as they all were, with nothing but themselves and belongings scattered upon the earth like a jigsaw. Jack sunk to his knees, his back slick with sweat in the ever hotter sun, and gently tugged at the bag's zip opening.

Inside he found as expected; a passport in the name of Flynn Saunders, a face he did not recognise, a wallet with some Australian dollars stuck in the back, a paperback - great, Sawyer'll be pleased, Jack thought grudgingly - and, to his great delight, a small unused disposable camera. The gadget looked to be intact and Jack pocketed it before stuffing the rest of the gear into his backpack for the others to sort out amongst themselves. He stood and carefully placed the heavy load of fruit on his back, readjusting to gain his balance and drawing the back of his hand across his forehead to clear the sheen of perspiration. A grin came over his face at the idea of having a camera; hell, it might be a while 'til they could get the photos developed, but they should have some record of this, of what they had achieved and their day to day life on the island. Now, he thought; where the hell am I?

After several minutes of wandering in circles Jack found his marker; the red bandanna he had tied around the branch of a tree so to orientate himself upon returning. He grabbed the scrap of material from its perch and continued down the trail he had made for himself. The birds were singing somewhere close by, and the waves were crashing along the shoreline in the distance, and as he knew they would, Jack's thoughts turned to Kate.

He worried about her, being out on the beach with only Sawyer and a few other characters for company and protection. Kate was nothing if not self-sufficient and deep down Jack knew that, but it didn't stop him noticing that look that clouded her irises when she thought no-one was looking; like a memory passing over her train of thought, or a dream unfulfilled. He knew only the bare bones of her history; but then, he mused, she could say the same of him. He wanted to ask her, what was it that she did, why did she seem to push others away if they got too close… but then he wondered, did he really want to know? Jack was aware that in his own mind Kate existed in fragments only, a few snatched moments, and so many of them imperfect, as if they were only skimming what each really wanted to say. He was scared of his own reaction to what this woman might have done, yet he ached to know the pain behind her eyes so he might wish it away. He was so used to being able to fix physical problems that Jack was worried he would not be able to mend her heart, would not be capable of drawing out the damage within Kate and somehow making it better. And, more importantly, if she'd ever let him anyway. Sometimes, for days on end, he was just too busy to see her; or he'd be tired and snap, or be distracted by an 'Excuse me, Doctor, but…'; and he'd turn from her approaching figure, and by the time he looked back she was gone.

And then there was this tension between them; he was sure all of Kate's independence and each of their fears caused it but Jack was unsure how to rectify the situation. He was lost as to how he felt about Kate; his comment that morning had fallen out his mouth and surprised even him. The trouble was that she could always come back with something witty and clever, and Jack didn't know how much to read into what Kate said. Whenever he pictured them together, it was always Kate pulling away, looking down, avoiding his eyes. But he remembered her face when he had been trapped in the cave with Charlie; the relief painted over her features, the cuts and bruises endured trying to reach him, the way she had clung to him like a lifeline. And Jack knew; he might never figure Kate out, but he'd try with all he had.

"Freckles." Sawyer leaned against a piece of wreckage that made up one 'wall' of Kate's area. He grinned cockily. "What… are you doing?"

. Kate grimaced and squinted into the sun, finding Sawyer's silhouette outlined in gold. The irony, thought Kate. It was almost like he was bathed in angelic light.

"Remind me why that's any of your business, Sawyer?" She retaliated, trying to discreetly fold the piece of paper she had been looking at.

"Aw, Freckles, come on now…" He jokingly backed off and held his hands up. "I'm just bein' neighbourly and coming to say howdy here, I thought we were passed all this hostility?" His sarcasm grated on her. "You got a cup of sugar and an egg I could borrow? I just moved in next door is all and I somehow haven't had time to run to the grocer's yet."

"Ha ha. I see we've found our class clown…" Kate muttered dryly as she tucked the white slip from her hand to her pocket. "Why are you in such a good mood?"

"Well see I just don't know… what can I say, the sun's shining and my tan's starting to look kinda impressive. Reckon I'm gonna be cover boy of The Island Calendar 2005 at this rate." Sawyer paused and struck a lazy pose. "Available at all good retailers, just $14.95."

Kate gave a small smile. Sawyer wasn't so bad really. She just wasn't in the mood for his banter right now. 

"And anyways Princess, I thought you'd be on top of the world after your little brekkie with Jacko this morning."

Kate looked up questioningly. "You…"

"Shh, don't get narky, I was taking a wizz and happened to see you two sitting in the sand a little way off. I was straight back to my bed, let me tell you. Angelina Jolie was making sure I had enough sun screen in all the right places, if you know what I mean." He winked. What was it with him, Kate wondered. Why always this act? But then, she thought, she did the exact same thing half the time. Just safer than letting the real stuff out.

"Hmm, well, I'm going over to the caves right now anyway." Kate leaned down and grabbed a bottle of water and her boots. "… so you can get back to Angelina before she opens her eyes and realises it's not Brad she's jacking off." She brushed past Sawyer and headed down the beach to the opening in the treeline to the caves, and didn't look back, even as her called after her.

"Well you have fun playing doctors and nurses there, give my regards to the crew, I know how they miss me… oh, and Kate? Stop looking at that piece of paper." Sawyer turned and wandered back to his lonely spot in the fuselage.

Kate flinched at Sawyer's words as they floated to her along the breeze. She'd guessed he had seen the mug shots she'd been looking at, but had been secretly hoping she was wrong. Jack had wordlessly handed them to her the night she'd refused to tell him what it was she'd done when he asked again. He'd had his chance, she told him; but she'd wanted to tell him, just scared, scared to speak the words and scared he'd run.

Now she couldn't help herself from staring at those two pictures, sometimes for hours on end. She'd stare long enough to stop recognising herself, until her retinas burned and the image faded into the paper. Kate hated that person. She hated what she'd become, what she'd done, hated that even she didn't understand it sometimes. She hated the memory of Jack's first gaze upon her after he'd discovered she was the felon on the plane; like she'd somehow robbed him of herself, as though she'd taken this perfect image he had of her and stamped on it and burnt it until there were only ashes and uncertainty left. And there was no-one to blame but herself, because she should have told him earlier, because she never should have done what she had in the first place. Forever imperfect and forever tainted.

Sometimes Kate just let herself stop; stop feeling guilty, stop hating herself, just for an hour or a day. The island was good at providing chores to be done, refuge to sort through, and Kate often found herself in Sun's garden, planting seeds or hoeing soil. She'd catch herself smiling for no reason, something she'd forgotten how to do for so long; at Sun's little delicate gestures, or when Clare came down with Aaron in all his incredible newness… and those few times when Jack had wandered in on them, with some excuse about having seeds, or wanting to check on herbal remedies. And after he was gone, how she would watch his figure retreat, and Sun whispered that Jack had asked that morning if Kate was coming up during the day. And Kate would smile even broader, and then more often than not feel guilty, inadequate, undeserving.

She shook these thoughts from her head as she approached the garden, Sun deep in concentration writing the names of different herbs upon small squares of plastic so to remember what was planted where. The little patch of herbs and fruit tree saplings seem to have thrived even more each time Kate came to tend to them; with Sun's attention and endless patience, they had really accomplished something useful and worthwhile. Kate waved silently to Sun, not wanting to interrupt her, and Sun returned the gesture and nodded, smiling delicately.

The caves came into view now, the buzz of activity as Charlie rocked a mewing Aaron, and Hurley stood with Jin, trying to somehow discuss their latest project - which to Kate sounded suspiciously like a non-starter - in a mixture of English, Korean and a sort of theatrical display when language failed them both. Kate couldn't help but smile as this delightfully ridiculous scene greeted her, and she did a general wave to all the campers as she walked to the waterfall to fill a couple of bottles.

She could see Jack in the corner of her eye, in the examination cave chatting to Clare and presumably checking all was well with both her and the baby. Clare looked tired, but exceedingly happy as she watched Charlie cradle her son and make all kinds of funny faces and voices to try and appease the infant. Charlie was doing so well, thought Kate as she smiled at him. He had practically become Aaron's father, and rarely let either mother or son out of his sight for any length of time. A new addiction, a new love, a new chance for them all.

"Kate," Jack jogged over to her, smiling softly. She noted he had changed since the morning and grinned sheepishly.

"Jack. See that shirt's just much nicer on you." She tucked an unruly strand of hair behind her ear, almost shyly. "So ya still up for a round of…" Kate mimed striking the ball with a driver.

"Absolutely, let me just grab the clubs… and if that was supposed to be golf, I don't think this'll be our last lesson either." Jack grimaced playfully and rubbed his hand over a scrape on his forearm.

Kate instinctively reached out and gently stroked the skin close to the wound. "Is that new? Are you okay?"

Jack stood still, feeling the softness of her fingertips. "Yeh, um, just a good reason why next time I gut a fish, I shouldn't also be discussing the finer details of pool with Hurley." He brought his other hand up subconsciously to protect the graze, and for a brief second his hand met hers, and their eyes met as a spark like a breath caught in ecstasy shuddered through them both.

It was Kate who withdrew her hand first. It was only against Jack's for a millisecond but she had to physically close and reopen her eyes to remember what she was doing at the caves. "Right, well you go do the manly thing and get the clubs then." 

Jack blinked. "Clubs. Yes. Good plan."

The sky was a blue streamer above them, and the 'flag' - a Hawaiian shirt ripped to stay on the pole - fluttered in the breeze that ran down the valley. "You don't understand!" Kate cried, trying not to laugh. "I was always the athletic kid at school, there wasn't one sport I wasn't at least okay at… except for golf, apparently." She shook her head, and ripples of chocolate brushed around her face as the wind caught her hair.

"Indeed. Not so hot on the golf." Jack mocked her gently. Kate was currently at her fifteenth shot to get the ball in the hole, on a three par hole. The ball was lying in what Jack kept calling the 'rough' - it all looked pretty rough to her - and Jack kept telling her she needed a gap wedge, or some other wedge, and so Kate naturally decided to continue using the 4-iron she had become accustomed to. Trouble was, of course, that it didn't actually seem to be getting her any closer to the hole.

"Jaaaacckkkk…" She whined as the ball once again flumped down in the same patch of grass it appeared to be particularly fond of coming back to. "See this is why only doctors play golf."

"Mmmm?" He murmured, walking over to her and suppressing a grin at how cute she looked, half sulking and holding the club completely wrong.

"'Cause only you lot could possibly put up with doing something this frustrating for hours on end! Like spinal surgery…or those tiny microscopic operations you seem to love." Kate had to admit, through all her complaining, she hadn't felt so relaxed in as long as she could remember. She was so used to conversations with Jack being short and fleeting, as one of them had to return 'home'; it was the first time in weeks they had spent more than twenty minutes together without an interruption.

"Maybe it's 'cause only us spinal surgeons have the skill to master such a testing sport." Jack grinned. "Come here," he gestured for Kate to turn around so she had her back to him. "Now show me your grip."

"Of the club?" She asked sweetly.

Jack coughed. "Of the club."

Kate complied, cheeks burning, not daring to turn around to see Jack's face. She locked her hands together around the grip and tried to adopt what she considered to be a 'golfy' stance.

"Well… your grip's okay, your stance is… acceptable, your club is totally wrong, and of course you're not a spinal surgeon, so that's two things for you and two against." She could feel his breath on her shoulder, his chest with rippled muscle firm against her back. Kate caught her breath, and once she had felt Jack retreat, brought the club up and hit the little white ball firmly in the centre. It leapt up from the grass, sailing through the air and landing gracefully a foot from the hole; and with a little help from gravity, slowly descended the final stretch of green and curved satisfyingly into the cup Hurley had buried level with the ground. Kate wheeled round, a huge smile on her face, those dark eyes dancing.

"See what happens when ya have a spinal surgeon nearby?" Jack joked as Kate leapt on him, whirling them both around. "Hole in seventeen. We'll make a professional out of you yet!" They both fell down in a fit of laughter, Kate's hands pinning Jack's shoulders and her petite form colliding against his.

"I got it in! I got it in!" Kate cried in between fits of laughter.

"You did." Jack smiled at her, their eyes meeting and neither looking away for long moments. She wanted to ask him about the scar through his eyebrow. She wanted to curl up in this moment and never leave, she was so happy.

"Kate…" Jack's eyes never left hers, and he suddenly in the moment knew exactly what he wanted and how he felt and none of the other stuff mattered. Kate was Kate and whatever she had done, had made who she was today. And she was so full of life and hope and filled him with joy, all that fragile beauty and put on strength. Jack brought his hand to the side of her face, smoothing a tendril of hair and cupping her delicate cheek.

"Jack, I…" The sweet roughness of his fingers caressed her cheek, and it was all Kate could do to not cry. He made her so endlessly happy, all their banter and jokes and his never ending kindness and goodness. But… she couldn't do this to him, she couldn't let him in, couldn't let him in as she had Tom, couldn't let him die as she had Tom. What if she screwed Jack up too? "No.. no… I can't…" A tear ran down Kate's cheek, soaking into his palm, and confusion flooded Jack like a high tide.

"Kate… what's wrong?…" But she was already up and running, dashing down the valley, doing the only thing she knew how to. Jack could still feel her cheek under his hand, how something like relief had flooded her features when he had first touched her - followed by what? Fear? Shame? Guilt?

"KATE!" He called after her retreating figure. "What's wrong? What did I do?"

But she couldn't, or wouldn't, hear him; heard only the pounding of her heart, the tears drowning her, the longing she ignored and the voice in her head which told her; you're not good enough, you're not good enough…

The heavens broke overhead, like the gods sobbing, and the ground around them both suddenly came alive with fat droplets of rain disturbing each leaf and bug. Jack stood perfectly still in the deluge, water dripping off his eyebrows and fingertips, staring after this woman who filled more of his heart with each footfall and each raindrop, and wondered how to break down the barriers that hid her from him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3** - _Follow the Footprints  
9/10/5_

Jack's words echoed down the valley to her, this natural amplifier created by the curved walls of rock. He shouted her name once more, and she knew the volume and intensity of the word related his concern and confusion; but to Kate, with tears streaming and wishing she could start her life over, it sounded like an accusation.

Her bare feet pounded into the solid mass of ground, the mud and thousand years of compacted soil and dead vegetation, skeletons and skin cells. Her tears fell and her vision blurred, until she was running blind; but she didn't care, cared only that she must save Jack from her herself, from what she was afraid she might still be capable of. Blind and bloodied, Kate sank into those things she didn't want to remember, those memories which dug like daggers into her heart; tortured herself with them, because anything was better than remembering the distress and bewilderment on Jack's face as she pulled away.

_He hit her. Wasn't it funny how pain keeps you waiting? That millisecond of time between the stimulus and her body's reaction to it; she could imagine the reverberation of the impact shooting up her sensory nerves and back down again, keeping her waiting. Like stubbing her big toe on her eighth birthday, the pleasure of being the centre of attention and ripping colourful paper from meaningless gifts suddenly stamped on, and she had howled before the pain had even arrived. Kate swayed with the impact, and finally her nerves seemed to catch up with the situation. Her cheek grew warm, unpleasantly so, felt as though it was on fire; but the physical ache meant nothing to her. She did not cry, did not react; just sat there in shock and terror. This was the man she had just given herself to, had allowed to be the first to see her bare flesh, invade her body. He had taken her too roughly, not stopped when she winced, but just forced himself further inside. She was dry, felt stretched and assaulted; had realised in a flash as he pounded above her and his ragged breath came in putrid waves over her, that he didn't love her at all. She was a piece of flesh, an unused prize, a mere hole he could use and rub raw._

He had hit her. She was still naked before him, spots of fresh virgin blood mixing with his cum on the sheets, staining them. She felt dirty, hollow, empty. This wasn't how it was supposed to be; this wasn't the fairytale picture he had painted out for her. Where were the fresh sheets, the gentle hands, the curling up together afterwards? He was shouting at her but his words wouldn't register; Kate sat curled upon the floor and tried to hide herself, those delicate pieces of flesh he had bruised with his touch. She felt fabric tossed towards her, the clothes she would never wear again after tonight. "Get up, slag, my wife's coming!" His words penetrated her, throbbed like the rawness within her. She said nothing, just dragged herself vertical, clawed in the dark for her jeans and pulled them on, not bothering with underwear. He was hiding their brandy glasses, ripping the blemished sheets from the mattress, chucking her sandals carelessly so they collided with her bare back. She glanced at him, this man who not an hour ago had been whispering he loved her as he laid her down and worked her panties from her groin. "Look, it's not my fault I hit you, okay? You asked for it, sitting there like…" He stopped and shook his head, regarded her with something like disgust. "Well, I had fun. Go out the back. Bye Kate."

Something in her head took over, suppressed the sobs and penetrating desperation that engulfed her. Kate dragged the singlet over her chest, hiding the bloody tooth marks engraved into the delicate skin of her areolas. She never met his eyes again, never let him see her pain. She ran from the sickening light of the room; her trembling hands fumbling over the key in the lock of the back door, just as she heard the rush of wind from the front door opening and what she assumed was his wife's voice, filtering through the house. Then the door was open, and closed again behind her, and the bright light of day was upon her, exposing her scars to the world. You never told me you were married_, she sobbed, over and over as she scrambled over the back fence. _You never told me_. He had told her she was beautiful and special and like no-one he had ever met. He bought her flowers and drove her to the coast, whispered there was no rush, just when she was ready. She had bought and swallowed his every word, unused to being called anything positive, used to criticism and being ignored by both parents and peers. _You stupid little girl_, she told herself. _You're a stupid, selfish, useless little girl_. And Kate ran and ran, ran away from that room and that house and the memory of him falling atop her as ecstasy reached him and his body gave way, and he broke her. She was fifteen._

She didn't know how long she'd been running for when she finally let her footfalls cease. Fleeing from Jack had merged with running from that horrid moment in her adolescence, and Kate's feet had gone numb a long way back. She had broken through shrubbery, scarred the island with her trail.

In some ways she didn't understand her reasons herself. The whole day had been building up to that moment, had it not? It had been she who had leapt upon Jack, she who had knocked him to the ground, she who had met his eyes. _Why?_ her mind screamed. Why, if somewhere deep in her soul she had known she would get scared and back off; why had she led him on, let him follow her to the edge only to be allowed to fall? She ached for him, ached to let him in to face her demons and quell them. But she was so afraid, so determined not to let her bruise of a life impact upon his; he meant too much to her, a snowflake she didn't want to crush under the weight of her fall. Jack had dedicated his life to saving lives; she had ruined her  
own and taken another's. What right did she have to inflict that knowledge upon him?

Kate half sat, half fell, upon the saturated ground. She could see the cuts on the soles of her feet, could feel her own weakness after such exertion, but the pain was nothing compared to the inferno in her heart. She could feel a physical throb each time her heart beat, those snapshots she had carried with her from the golf course to here. Split seconds apart; Jack's face as he said her name and leant gently towards her, the happiness that inched through his features… it was so much for her, too evocative of Tom and his first hesitant teenage steps towards kissing her. And the second photo, Jack's eyes stained with confusion, blaming himself, unsure. She ran through the other memories she carried around with her; Tom, the first time he had told Kate he loved her; their first night together, and how he hadn't judged her when she had told him about her first time. She saw her own mother screaming for protection at the sight of her daughter, the police car blocking the exit, considered for the millionth time why she'd rammed the gates, why she hadn't realised they'd shoot. She saw Tom, still warm and pink cheeked, beside her in the car; with blood soaking through his shirt to the foreign, outside world, and knowing instantly that she had killed him. Oh, she hadn't pulled the trigger, she hadn't fired the bullet. But she had killed him. After all, she was Kate Austin; she'd already Smurfed up her life beyond repair, on the run, ever on the run. Why not do the final deed? Why not spread the caesar salad and blood and horror a little further? Take a doctor, a husband, a father. At least that's what the police thought. They didn't know. No-one knew.

"Kate." A voice breathed, shock in the tone. _Oh god_, she thought. _Not now._ She exhaled, a sigh and a cry for help. She must look pretty terrible. He never called her Kate.

"Jesus." Sawyer walked towards her decimated form. "What the hell?"

She refused to look at him. Of all the places she could have stopped running, why did it happen to be here? What the hell was he doing this far from the beach, from the raft, from his precious books? She willed him away. She prayed over and over again for her eyes to open and for him to be gone. Kate opened her eyes. No such luck.

"Smurf off, Sawyer." She muttered through clenched teeth.

"Woah, Freckles." _Back to normal then, _Kate thought. "I don't know where you been, or what's happened, but I sure as hell ain't gonna leave you here like this. I know I'm a bastard, trust me I do, and you can call me every name under the sun once we get back to the beach. But I'm not going back without you." _Christ_, he thought. He'd never seen someone look so…drained? Tired? Lost?

"Super. 'Fraid you'll have a long wait then." She spat out the words. She had reached the edge, Sawyer realised. Everything that had happened, now or today or at any point in her life, had suddenly become too much for her. She was practically shaking under the burden of knowing what she had done. Of course he knew, knew the weight a murderer carried, knew the torture he put himself through everyday just to try and repent for his sins. And he hadn't murdered someone he loved. Kate had.

But she wouldn't speak to him if he showed her he was concerned. Kate didn't know how to react to concern, and if he was honest, Sawyer had trouble conveying it. Neither of them was overly good at talking about their emotions or worries, or letting down barriers. _Ah well. Here goes nothing._ He stretched his limbs, found a patch of grass opposite Kate, and sat.

"Right. Well we've got lots of time to talk about why you're out here lookin' like you've been ten rounds with Ali then."

"I don't want to talk, Sawyer."

"Funny that, seeing as how ya are and all." Sawyer smirked despite himself. He knew Kate would never see in him what she saw in Jack, but they sure did have some good debates. "I'm guessin', and now correct me here if I'm wrong, that something happened with the good doctor up at the caves. And you're thinking too much about the past and those mug shots."

She flinched, ever so imperceptibly, and Sawyer knew he was right. Ah, ya had to love cons, they were all the same deep down. "So what's the problem Freckles? Jack knows about your chosen career, does he not?"

_No_, she thought. _He knows I've killed a man. He knows I loved that man, but not that he made me feel special and safe, just like Jack does. He doesn't know that when I dream about him, he turns into Tom and dies. He doesn't know._ A whimper escaped her throat.

Sawyer heard it, that tiny cry, the tip of an iceberg even he couldn't imagine. He saw the answer to his question run through her eyes like a silent movie, the answer he didn't hear but could only imagine. She sobbed again, louder this time, the breath catching in her throat. Kate buried her face into her arms, her whole body visibly jolting as it wracked with tears that overwhelmed her. 

_Oh god, I'm crying in front of Sawyer._ She felt the pain from her feet, the cuts down her arms from razor sharp reeds, the look on Tom's face as he died, the look on Jack's face as she ran. Kate shattered. She felt herself dissolve, fragment by fragment, until all that was left were the layers of grief, the years of regret and running and hiding and loneliness. The pieces fell in her mind, each reflecting a regretful moment like a splinter of mirror or polished glass. And as Sawyer's arms encircled her, picking her up and forcing her to stand and lean against him, she knew she would never find all the pieces again.

He had followed the path of her destruction, the trampled plants and footprints - bare, he noticed worriedly - through the suction of the sopping mud. Jack waded along for an hour, knowing there was no point in running, for Kate would stop whenever she decided to, and Jack running also would only lead to one of two outcomes; he would take a wrong turn and never find her, or he would stumble carelessly into her silence and make a blunder of trying to speak to her. He walked and found fragments of her along the way; a hair tie, a snag of material... blood. He shuddered, reminded himself it was only a little, and continued.

Jack left his mind blank as he walked. He couldn't let himself think, for there were too many questions and not enough answers, so much buried. He thought of that toy plane she never let go, of her despair at telling him it belonged to the man she loved. The man she killed. And then Jack cleared his mind, because it was killing _him_ to think of it. All he needed to do was speak to her, to stop tiptoeing around the past and all those things left unsaid. He needed to know what she kept running from.

So when he reached the clearing, that place where the footprints led, and saw Kate, he stopped. Stopped walking, stopped clearing his mind, stopped all the assumptions he had made. Because she was curled up in Sawyer's arms, clinging to him, and while Jack couldn't see her face he could see the white of her knuckles on Sawyer's back, and the quick kiss he pressed into Kate's hair. Through jealousy, and leaping carelessly into new assumptions, Jack didn't notice that Kate's body was shaking with tears. He didn't see her bloodied feet, or the awkward way she let Sawyer hold her. He saw only the two of them hugging, the flash of knowledge that they had once kissed, the way she ran from him, apparently to here, to Sawyer.

Jack turned on his heel, let black hardness enter his eyes and cloud over the hurt. And he walked away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 - Light Years From Here**  
_14/10/5_

_"My heart can't possibly break  
When it wasn't even whole to start with"_

The night passed slowly in the caves. Jack returned just after sundown, returned with a rapid gait and fractured heart and ignored the smiles offered to him. Charlie had trotted up, no doubt to quiz Jack on his and Kate's golf session; but he was stopped in his tracks but something deep in Jack's eyes. Something like hurt, or disbelief; something like waking up to find that perfect, photographic moment was nothing but a dream.

Jack slept in sharp snatches, always dozing off only to see Sawyer holding her, his sandy hair against her chestnut, their frames drawn together. How could he have been so stupid? He blinked repeatedly in the still, invisible air beside the cave entrance, trying to clear his mind and trying to stop replaying the scene over and over. But had she not been flirting with him? Had she not looked so… so happy, so relaxed, when they were playing golf? Jack couldn't recall the last time he had seen Kate give so wide a smile as she had repeatedly had this afternoon. He blinked. Was it as long ago as before he knew the truth about her? Before the mug shots and the marshall dying and the suitcase with that toy plane… weeks ago. Weeks since she had relaxed around him for more than a few stolen moments.

The embers of the fire were still glowing as Jack walked over to them. He threw a shirt over his shoulders and pulled on his khaki boardies, sitting down heavily on the smooth rock beside the waterfall. It was pitch black apart from that tiny pile of kindling, no moon in the solid onyx sky. It felt wrong; the calm of the night, the patchwork quilt of stars above his crown, that twinkling dot to dot… and him between the land and the sea and the infinite sky, him seething and angry and upset and tormented. Cheated. Oh, Kate didn't owe him anything. She hadn't said she wanted him or needed him or loved him. But he had seen it, that look like a fear fading as he had laid his hand on her cheek; something like relief and letting go. So why, then? Why running away and why to Sawyer's open arms?

"Stop it." He wished it was her voice. He wished it was Kate, to tell him he was being stupid, or that he had been dreaming all along. But it Jack's own voice, his mind commanding itself. Stop thinking about it. He'd get no answers tonight, and wasn't sure he wanted any. Jack felt a tear slide from his eyelash, burning over the scratches upon his cheek, soaking into the rough stubble before finally curving under his mandible. An angry hand brushed away the emotion. He was so tired of letting people in only for them to hurt him. His whole life, spent trying to impress his father, that hard steel man who only gave Jack any praise when he needed his son's help. His mother… Jack doubted he would ever figure the woman out. Cold and unfeeling, ever putting her child down, even when he reached medical school, even as he devoted his life to saving others. He felt diminished simply standing in the same room as them both. Jack had wondered more than once, through his adolescent years and even on the flight over to Sydney; what if he had truly ever done something to make them so unreachable? What if he turned to drugs or never bothered at school, or Smurfed around and Smurfed up and Smurfed off. He'd felt cheated by them, all his life, cheated out of praise and emotion and disregarded whenever he let tears fall. He'd vowed not to leave himself vulnerable again. Vowed to not feel cheated or used for his goodness, for the way he lay his heart out for all to see, again. 

And so he hadn't. Jack was all too aware how aloof he could be now, how distant; he remembered that night after the cave collapsed. How Kate had so gently laid her homemade sling over his neck and placed his arm inside it; her fingers so delicate, so caring. He had felt so close to her in that moment. Close enough to let himself feel a little bit. Hurley and Michael had told him how she had fallen into camp, her heart on her sleeve, the fear in her voice and blazing in her eyes. How she wouldn't stop digging for hours, even for a mouthful of water. He had seen for himself the way she tumbled, on the brink of exhaustion, from the pile of rubble and into his arms. How she wouldn't let him out of her sight all evening. And then just as they were making steps towards each other, he had broken the spell by asking why she wouldn't leave the beach. He had visibly seen her eyes lose that sparkle, felt the cool air that suddenly formed between them. That distance he had to have around himself, pushing her away; and Kate, too used to running and never letting anyone in, let herself go. Let him go.

And now; how long had she been with Sawyer? He couldn't believe she would go to him, that smarmy sarcasm he oozed, that edge of malice. Maybe Kate went for the bad boy. Maybe that's why her ex had wound up dead. Hell, maybe that was why she had refused point blank to move over to the caves. At the beach, she and Sawyer didn't have to deal with him. They could sneak about far more easily, just wander up the coast a little way or dive two foot into the jungle and behind a tree. Jack ached to think of it. Her spirit, that spirit he had held in his arms just hours ago, that spirit that had fascinated him and bewildered him; not his to think of at all. Not his to wonder of, as he pictured it mingling with Sawyer's own black soul, drowning her.

Jack shook his head, clearing his mind. No doubt he'd run into her at some point, and he didn't even want to think of the moment, the awkwardness, the jealously he knew he wouldn't be able to hide. He gazed up to the heavens, the night splintered with stars, staring into the past and present and future all at once. He wondered if somewhere in all that infinity, somewhere far beyond this galaxy and this lifetime, there was another world just like this; a world where the same plane had crashed and the same people had survived. But maybe in that world she hadn't pulled away from his caress. Maybe in another world he had leaned in to kiss her, and her breath had caught as their lips met; maybe in that world, instead of sitting alone, she was curled up in his arms and they were deep in peaceful sleep. Maybe, somewhere even further from here and this moment, there was no Oceanic Airlines Flight 815. He was getting coffee and had spun around, in a rush to get to work, and nearly run into her; he asked her out to lunch 'to make up for it'. Lunch ran into dinner and dinner ran into talking all night about everything they never thought they'd tell another. And that night ran into forever.

The next moment Jack knew it was the edge of morning, the stars fading into approaching daylight. His neck ached from lying on bare rock; Locke, up for his early morning hunt, was looking at him oddly from the other side of the clearing. Jack arched his back and stretched out his abs, thought of those endless dreams of distant worlds. And he forced himself back into this one, where the Kate he had formed in his mind didn't really exist, and the one who did… the one who did, he was on the island, and most likely at the beach, for there was nowhere else to go with the state her feet were in. But he didn't know about her feet, Kate realised. Maybe he had come to speak to her. Maybe he had come to shout at her for running off and giving him no explanation. Maybe she should go to him first, for it was she who had left.

The wind caught the loose strands of hair around her face as she walked slowly out from behind her shelter. He was floating atop the water now, allowing the gentle rhythm of the waves to carry him as they wished. The tide was coming in and by the time Kate reached the water's edge, Jack was maybe less than fifty metres from her. Close enough to sense her. Close enough to hear her tentative words.

"Jack." She wanted to run back up the beach and hide again. She wanted to hide until rescue came and then turn herself in. Anything, anything at all, would surely be easier than this.

His eyes cracked open. He could see her silhouette upon the shoreline, the sun blazing behind her, but each time Jack tried to see her face properly the sun would blind him. But he knew it was Kate. He knew her voice and awkward stance, even how each piece of unruly hair would flutter away, no matter how many times she tucked it behind an ear.

"Kate." He realised how close he was to shore and stood up in the water, shading his eyes and seeing her properly. She looked terrified. Really terrified. His heart ached and hardened, all in the same moment. "Kate, I don't-"

"Wait." She cut him off. "I need to explain. Why I ran off. Why I had to leave."

Jack laughed bitterly as he waded in his jeans, heavy and solid with saltwater, back to the white hot sand. "Oh, don't worry. I know why you left."

Kate's mind reeled, confusion setting in. How could he? He couldn't possibly know about Tom or her fears or how inferior she sometimes felt when they were together. "Jack, I don't understand…"

"_You_ don't understand? You don't? How do you think I'm feeling then, Kate?" The anger spilled out of him. The jealousy and pain of giving her a piece of his heart, only for it to be stamped on. That image of her in Sawyer's embrace.

She took a step back. She and Jack had had disagreements but this was different. This wasn't her not moving to the caves or him being tactless and unfeeling. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you, I didn't mean to it's just, Jack…" Kate swallowed. "There's so much you don't know. So much I want to tell you but I just get scared. You don't know. You don't know what it's done to me, being on the run and…" She blinked back the hot tears which threatened. "I've done so much I'm ashamed of. Half the time all I want is to walk into the ocean and not bother surfacing again. I just seem to hurt you."

"Why, Kate?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you hurt me? Is it on purpose? 'Cause it sure seems like it sometimes. All day yesterday all I was looking forward to was spending some time with you, and then on the golf course you just looked so…" Jack gazed into the distance. "Happy. You looked happy. So forgive me but I don't _get_ why you then run off to…" He stopped himself. 

Kate stepped forward. She hated seeing him like this. She needed to explain, but there were just too many words. She felt saturated, drowning in her own history and tears spilled long ago. "Jack… Jack, I don't want to hurt you, I never want to hurt you. I'm sorry. There's so much I need to explain. So many things I need to tell you."

"You sure it's me you should be telling them to?" He sneered. It was like a barrier for him. It would be too easy to go to her glassy eyes and wrap her in his embrace. He could see the sorrow and confusion in her eyes but wouldn't let himself go there again. There was too much pain, even now, when she wasn't his and never had been.

"Who... What?" Was he still so absorbed in the knowledge that she had, weeks and weeks ago, made out with Sawyer to get Shannon's inhalers? "Are you talking abut Sawyer?"

Jack gave a sarcastic smile. "Well done, Kate. You got us both. Is this what you do? Go around Smurfing people's lives up?"

Kate's mind reeled. It flipped and turned upon itself and still none of this made sense. The kiss happened… Christ, it was so long ago she could barely remember it. She had known Jack wasn't exactly happy about it, but was sure he would have mentioned all this to her before now if it had truly upset him this much. "Jack, what are you talking about?"

"I saw you, Kate. You lead me on all day, after weeks of us both knowing there's this... connection. I let you in, and then all the time you're…!" He was shouting now. He hadn't meant to shout, and could visibly see her shutting down, her arms folded over her chest, her whole posture curved and eyes to the sand. 

"All the time I'm what, Jack?" Her voice was so small next to his. So small and fragile and confused.

"It doesn't matter anymore. I don't own you. You don't have to answer to me. I just thought you had more decency than this." He started walking away from her, turned his back to her pale face. "I thought I knew you, even a little. Guess I was wrong."

She was about to let him go. This was what she did, wasn't it? Hurt people, and move on. Kate Austin in five words. But she wanted to know what Jack was talking about. She needed to know what it was she had done, so specifically, for his words didn't tally with her merely running off and leaving the moment. "Jack!" she cried, running through the sand after him, the frustration of sinking further into the silky particles. He stopped.

"What is it, Kate? We've fully established that you don't want to be close to me, that you've already made your decision about relationships on this island."

She caught up with him just as he was about to turn back to the trail. She grabbed his forearm, forced him to turn to her. And once she touched him, that bare damp skin, she didn't let go. She couldn't make herself.

"Tell me. Tell me what on earth you think I've done."

"You're trying to tell me you don't know?"

"Jack, I've no idea what you're speaking about."

He tried to move away, move her arm. He didn't want to say his name. He didn't want to speak about this. "Kate, let go."

"Not until you tell me what I've done!"

He gripped her fingers, not too tightly but just enough to try and relieve her grip. "You know, Kate."

"What? The kiss weeks and weeks ago? The kiss that meant nothing, then or now? The kiss with-"

Sawyer tore out of the jungle. He had seen Jack's grip on Kate's arm, the distress in her eyes, her raised voice. He barrelled into his opponent, sending Jack flying across the sand, the white grains instantly gripping the wet fabric of his denims. Jack was below Sawyer, his mind still trying to catch up with being horizontal with a fist descending into his nose. "Don't you touch her!"

Jack reacted just in time, Sawyer's punch finding only the sand before Jack rolled him. Oh, he was up for this. If Sawyer wanted a fight, he'd get one. Jack's fist smashed into the southerner's face, his nose erupting with blood and a grunt spilling from his throat. Shocked that Jack had landed the first blow, Sawyer head butted the man above him, splitting Jack's lip and causing a rapid ooze of blood to trickle down his chin. He grabbed Jack's shoulders and pushed him off, both men quickly standing and wiping blood from backs of hands to garments.

"What the Smurf you doing, Sawyer?"

"Oh, I know, Jacko. You're the hero, the good doctor. You'd never hurt a woman, but hey look, here ya are doing just that."

"I wasn't…" Had he been? Had his grip be so tight on Kate's fingers?

Sawyer caught Jack off guard, landing a sharp lefthander just above Jack's eyebrow and opening an old wound.

Sawyer grimaced. "She deserves better than you, Doc."

"What, you? You're the answer, are you? How long's it been going on, Sawyer?"

"Jacko. What are you jabbering about." Sawyer ducked Jack's extended fist.

"You and Kate! I saw you!"

"STOP!" A voice screamed from the sidelines. Kate collided with the two of them, her tiny frame somehow stronger than either man, a million thoughts forming and disseminating all at once.

"Freckles? Me and Freckles?" Sawyer guffawed. "What pills you been taking doc?"

Jack turned to Kate and the expression on her face. It was a mixture of anger and confusion and something else, something he couldn't find under the pain. "Yesterday." Jack explained. "Yesterday, after you… after you ran off. I followed you. And found you two… together."

Sawyer sighed, something like resignation in his voice. "Jesus, Jacko, I was only giving your girl a hug 'cause she was upset and crying. Now I'm not saying I wouldn't mind things going further than that, but let's face it, it ain't gonna happen." Sawyer turned to Kate, her concern at his nose. The pain smarted through him but Sawyer knew it wasn't broken. Jack hadn't hit him hard enough for that. He had felt him hold back. "Freckles. I'm gonna leave you two to it." He gave Jack a final glare before departing. "Don't you touch her, or hurt her, in any way, right?"

Jack nodded despite himself. The shame flooded him. Why had he jumped to conclusions? He looked down, guilt and sorrow threading slowly through him. And it was then he noticed Kate's feet. They were cut, scraped, dried blood still atop cuts which could so easily get infected. "Kate. Your feet." He breathed the word, and knew he had no right to. The blood from his punctured lip bubbled, and he could taste the sickly iron upon his tongue.

Kate didn't know what to say. She didn't even know what she felt anymore. All the feelings she had had before; they had been enough to deal with, but now she had Jack mistrusting her, thinking she had gone to Sawyer? The anger and disappointment, and just sadness, filled her up. "Jack… I don't know how to deal with this right now." She turned from him. "I'm sorry I ran away. But it wasn't to Sawyer and it wasn't from you… it was from what I was afraid I could do to you." She met his eyes, stared deep into those pools so filled with regret, could see the ache within him to erase the last hour of time. "I've hurt so many people in my life. More than hurt. And you… you spend your whole life fixing people and making them better. And I'm so so broken." The last words brought tears, hot swollen tear drops which carved like an engraving into the smooth skin of her cheek. "There's so much you don't knsn't sure he knew at all.

The rest of the day passed like a train at full throttle; he saw none of it clearly, blurred faces and words that didn't register. Shannon came through from the beach just after midday, her breathing heavy and face a deep crimson. And it didn't register. It was like a memory blank. He could see her gasping and looking to him, could see Sayid's concern and confusion at Jack's lack of action; but it was Sun who skipped delicately over, who crushed up the eucalyptus, who told Shannon to relax and spread the paste over her sternum. Jack stood to the side, watched the whole action like it was a scene from a movie. He just couldn't make himself step forward or form the words. His whole mind was full of Sawyer's smiling face.

"Dude… are you, like, okay?" It was Hurley's voice who cut through the whispers and frowning faces.

Jack whipped round to him. The question acted like a knife, slicing through the haze suffocating him. "I'm fine. I'm…. I've just gotta get out of here." He looked to Sun apologetically, and the gentle woman nodded that she had things under control.

Jack strode out of camp, forceful strides silently commanding a path through the crowd formed around Shannon. His fists were clenched at his sides. His back was slick with sweat, and he could feel the anger rising like nausea. Anger at Kate, and at Sawyer, but most of all anger at himself. For letting her in, and making her run. His walk turned to a jog, then a run, until Jack was sprinting into the ocean, his feet flying through the cooling water and body saturated. His arms ploughed through the choppy waves, until he was deep enough to float under the surface. The waves plummeted above him but Jack felt none of the impact, floating in abeyance, at peace.

_"I don't know what to say  
And I don't know anyway  
Not anymore  
I hate myself for losing you  
What do you do when you look in the mirror  
And staring at you is why he's not here"_

Kate was hidden under a large sheet of blue tarpaulin suspended between two sections of wing, folding her sun-dried clothes into neat piles. She was silent, had been since her breakdown the previous afternoon; had wordlessly allowed Sawyer to lead her back to the beach. She had slept fitfully, waking in a cold sweat with laboured breathing. That dream would come again and again, the one of Tom as he became Jack. But it was far worse waking to the reality of hurting Jack, of really causing him pain he didn't deserve. She didn't know how to approach him, how to look in his eyes without breaking down. There was too much to explain, too much to tell him in one go. Lives ruined and a broken childhood and a lost little girl who rebelled too far. And years of running. Years and years of no real friends and certainly no-one who had looked at her like he did. Like he knew her. Like he knew she needed him.

And so when he came tearing through the shrubbery, tripping over himself and careering down the beach, Kate didn't know how she felt. Shame and fear and not good enough to speak to him, more than ever now. She watched from a distance as his body hit the surf; felt the lump in her throat like a physical reminder of all the things she was afraid to tell him. She wondered why he had rushed so suddenly to the water, his legs almost too fast for the rest of him to keep up. He didn't know she was there, of that she was sure. But he knew she wawouldn't disappear just because her feelings were reciprocated

Jack grinned. "Um, yeah, I was kinda guessing you might say that. It's okay." He knew he was treading on eggshells. He knew, despite her silence on the matter, how Kate doubted herself. How she thought she was worth so little, because of what she'd done and who'd she'd hurt. "Listen…" He covered both her hands with his own. That stuff. About me fixing people and you being broken. I'm not gonna promise I can fix you, 'cause life doesn't work that way. But I want you to know how worthy you are. Of every good thing that comes your way. I know… I know I don't know really what you did, or how you ended up here. But I want to know. I want to know you, not judge you." He cupped her cheek and it was Kate could do to not cry, or run, or just grab hold of him and never let go.

"Thank you." She whispered. She'd never heard those words before. That she was worth something. Kate could feel her legs giving out, in grief and sorrow for what had happened, and happiness and joy for what she was being offered now. Jack.

"Promise me one thing. Come meet me later, at the swimming hole. Just after sundown. Let me have a look at your feet-" Jack winced just at the sight of this beauty before him, scarred because she was running from him. "And we can just take things slowly. Very slowly. I just want to know you, Kate."

She nodded, almost imperceptibly, grazed his thumb with her own. She dragged herself away, like magnets being pulled apart. She pulled on her boots as he watched, every movement so delicate, so beautiful. Jack could feel his heart swell with anticipation, for every moment like this they would have. Kate stood, a bottle of water in her hand.

"So… I'll see you in a couple of hours."

The sun beat down on them, the ocean slowly made it's way up the shore, and somewhere very far away, in another galaxy or lifetime, they stood exactly like this, said exactly the same words. Somewhere in the infinite universe.

Jack nodded. He bent his head and kissed the back of her hand; corny he knew but it just felt right. Kate blushed and grinned.

"See you then."

He watched until her figure had gone behind the tree line, until the leaves had stopped rustling due to her presence. Then Jack turned to the caves once more, his jeans sticking to his legs and his whole body coated in sand; his lips burning with the feel of hers upon them, and a grin like a dream coming true.

_"You found me when no-one else was looking  
How did you know just where I would be_

I guess that you saw what nobody else could see  
The good and the bad and everything in between"

She'd been walking maybe twenty minutes when she realised he was following her. Kate stuck to a reasonably new trail but a trail nonetheless, aiming to pick some guava from a new patch she'd discovered recently. She stopped when she heard the other footsteps, hid herself in the deep furrow of an ancient tree she couldn't identify. A grin filled her face and she tried to suppress a giggle; all she could think about was that moment her lips met Jack's, that feeling of security and happiness that had brimmed over within her. Kate knew that voice was still in her somewhere, that one that repeated those four little words over and over, and knew that a large part of her still believed it. But she was so determined, to tell Jack everything, to try and overcome it all. Maybe she'd tell him just now. Maybe he was just playing a trick, and hadn't thought she'd heard him.

But the footprints were still coming in her general direction, and Kate readied herself to jump out at him. She couldn't wait to see the look on his face. The noises grew closer and closer, more subtle, more careful. When she heard them stop around the side of the tree, Kate poised herself, steadied her footing, and leapt out into the clearing.

"Gotcha!" She cried. The grin plastered on her faow, and I don't want to burden it all on to you. And then… then you leap to assumptions about Sawyer. I wouldn't do that to you, Jack." She stepped towards him, the sand getting into her cuts and making her wince. "I couldn't."

Jack swallowed, speechless, lost. "I know that really. I'm so sorry Kate. I didn't mean to-" He stopped. "It's just so hard for me to let people in… and you're so far in. You've no idea. But I know that doesn't make up for it. I know I need to learn to trust you."

"But I need to trust myself first."

And it was then it happened. That moment he knew he'd never forget, no matter how many lifetimes he saw or universes there were out there. It was quick and unexpected, like she was testing them both; but more herself, seeing if it felt right. Kate filled the gap between them with her own body, tilted her head up, leaned in so her lips hovered so close to his. Jack could feel the electricity between them, the air torched with expectation. He gently took a wisp of hair, folded it behind her ear, waited for her to make the next move. Her hand stroked the stubble just at the corner of his mouth, and for moments she seemed mesmerised with just that tiny spot, that tiny piece of him. He didn't know the thoughts rushing through her head, the voice which whispered insistently, _You're not good enough_. Kate closed her eyes, let herself just feel the presence of him, let that override the voice she knew deep down was wrong. And she inched closer, so gentle, so hesitant. Their lips met, fuelling something like desperation and need within them both. His lip stung where it was split but he didn't care, cared about nothing but this precious person before him, this moment he'd played in his mind a million times. Kate trembled in the instant. God, he was so tender, his fingers which played with that lock of hair, his soft lips just on hers, so slight that Kate could nearly believe she was dreaming. But her heart was beating too wildly for that, she felt too complete and whole and safe. A shiver went down the length of her spine as he pulled her ever so slightly closer, his fingers soft on the small on her back. The kiss went no deeper, and together for long moments they stood not even kissing, just holding on to on another with lips touching. She could feel his hot breath on her neck, buried her head under the crook of his chin.

Kate let herself stay there for just a second, and for moments on end she let herself believe it was right and how things should be. But she knew; knew Jack had endless questions and there were still so many open wounds between them. She was still hurting from his betrayal of trust. She was still scared of how little she thought of herself, was overwhelmed by how much he obviously cared for her. She drew back.

"Jack, there's still…"

"Like a million things to talk about. I know."

Kate gave a small smile. Inside she was dancing, and was sure he was too, but each was so careful, so guarded. He had grasped her hand when she leant away from him and hadn't yet let go.

"Can I… Would it be okay for me to just go for a walk? Just… kinda a lot's happened and…" Words were failing her. All Kate could think of was Jack's lips upon hers, and how right and how wrong it had felt all at once. She knew it only felt wrong because she doubted her own worth, if she was good enough for him, but equally knew those fears ce felt like it would never leave. But then she saw.

It wasn't Jack.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 - Find Me Here**  
_20/10/5_

"You always wanna run away Katie."  
"Yeah, and you know why."

_It's the morning after. The day after. Your whole body aches with him, the bruises that are visible and so, so many more which you will hide and bury with shame. You roll over in bed, your queen size mattress, the thick down duvet shielding you from what you know is a cold and frosty morning. You love winter; the sharp defining nip in the air, the crunch of the snow under heavy boots, each breath in the air like a ghost. You've only been here two years, two years since your mom remarried and wanted a fresh start; but Canadian winters are like no other. Last year, Christmas was spent at your Aunt Meg's in North Dakota, and though there was still snow and your fingers still turned blue even inside, it wasn't the same. There was something invisible, something indefinable, different._

But not this morning. You don't see the frost slowly melt or the snow which tops the hills like thick double cream. You've ignored your father's calls to get breakfast, get ready for school, even ignored his joke of pouring cold water over you. You heard him creep into your room while the morning was still full of night, remember vaguely mumbling some excuse about feeling sick. You felt dirty, despite the hours of washing and scraping at your skin last night; dirty and sick to your stomach, but not for any reasons he knew of. You think how he's too good to you, has been all your life; how as soon as he heard your mother was taking you to Canada, he left the army and moved here, to less pay and less prospects, all to be near you. You wish so much you lived here, with him, all the time; instead of your mother, who has no time for you, and your stepfather… your stepfather, who sees only a child who is not his, a rebellious teen, the reminder of another man's Smurf.

You wish, endlessly, wish it even when you are sleeping; that you had stayed here yesterday evening. Not lied to your father about having to go to Tegan's to study, not gone to that dark neglected house and let go of your childhood as that man, that man who had whispered his love over and over, grinded into you. You wish you'd grinned and been a kid instead of trying to cool and fifteen; agreed to your father's suggestion of a movie and Chinese takeout. You wish you'd said yes and not seen that crestfallen look in his eyes. You wish you could go back in time and talk some sense into yourself. It feels like you've aged a decade overnight.

The house is quiet now. Your dad's gone to work, driven his belching truck from the driveway. You send a quick prayer that he drives safely on this black winter day, the roads slick with black ice and his mind no doubt half on you and how you are. You pull the covers back from your face, and your skin doesn't feel good enough to see daylight or be in your father's house. The covers are still warm with your rosy heat as you push them back all the way, that body revealed inch by inch, pink and black and blue. Your hair falls about your face, unruly and wild, full of knots, but you don't care. A photo sits on the beside cabinet in a pine frame; it was taken three years ago, before the divorce, when your dad was stationed in Washington State for eight months. He's standing proud in his uniform, your mom is holding his hand and looking up to him; and you're being a kid, not yet thirteen, not yet riddled with hormones and insecurity. You wear a light blue singlet and denim cut offs; you're latched to your father's back, your arms around his neck and legs circling his waist. Behind you the sky is azure. Those frozen faces; you smile at them, at their naivety, at how they believed love might last forever. And how they were wrong.

You drag yourself from the warm confines of your burrow, feet cold on the bare wooden floor. Your body feels like a rag doll, played with and tossed aside. The bathroom is stark white, too white, new last month; you dare to glance in the mirror and aren't surprised to see a slight red outline on your right cheek. You can still feel his hand there. You can still feel each contour of each fingertip, like the pattern of a scar. Sitting on the toilet, you pull down your flannel pyjama pants. And it hurts. It stings. Your pants have light specks on blood upon them, and you are swollen and raw. You cannot move or reach or sleep or even urinate without some part of you throbbing like a constant reminder.

The tears start then, big fat lonely droplets that glide down your cheeks. You cry for minutes on end, your breath catching with the enormity of how much your life has changed in three little years, all the grief you have buried, and the thought of last night still fresh, like scarlet blood on white linen. You hear your stepfather's voice, the one he doesn't use unless it's just him and you; when you struggle to do our homework or play a scale on the piano, or when you are doing nothing wrong at all. "You're not good enough, You're not good enough…"_ A sob echoes in the room like a cry for help, and you wrap yourself in your father's plaid shirt. It is the same one he wore that day you spent all day together, eight hours tracking deer, the pride in his voice when you picked up the trail yourself. And you think how right now, all you want to do is run away; get lost, lost so far away that no-one will ever find you. _

Kate woke with a start. The cave, so silent not a second ago, was filled with her deep gasp for breath and air and life. Her eyes snapped open, awake in an instant, immediately aware that something was wrong, definably wrong and different. This was not one of Jack's caves. Her pupils were huge, adjusting to the dim light, frantically darting about for clues or an indication of where she was.

And then she realised she couldn't move. She was lying horizontal, on some kind of thin blanket atop… metal? A part of the plane maybe? Her arms were above her head, hands bound together by some natural fibre woven into rope, and then fastened to some handle at the top of the metal. Her ankles were tied less tightly, an afterthought, bound only to each other by more of the same coarse fibres. Her pupils flitted around the room, full of panic and fear and confusion. Her head throbbed, like a steady painful pulse, with some injury she could not recall. The ropes, the dark, the pain; it all came tumbling down on her like a waterfall, mixing with the disorientation in both location and time. _Jack's lips. Her lips upon his. The scent of him, sweat and antibacterial hand wash and mango. The ropes that bound her, the black surrounding her, the dread filling her every pore._ Kate screamed.

No sound came. A muffled croak was all that met the air, like yelling into cotton wool. Then she realised, the feel of material in her mouth, dry musty jersey damp with her own saliva. She was gagged too. This was worse for her, far more upsetting than the ropes or darkness. The material was tight, digging in at the corners of her mouth, impeding her breathing. Short, shallow breaths filled the cave, and it was several seconds until Kate realised thi was blocked by a black silhouette. Deaf and blind, Kate's resolve abandoned her, the fear finding its niche and settling. She squirmed and screamed against her gag, and just one thought kept her going, kept her from passing out in the terror of the unknown in the dark.

_Jack, where are you…_

Jack was bathed in light. The sun filtered through to this spot in the late afternoon, and now as the last arc of burning crimson melted into the horizon, that last shiver of light just caught his face and he closed his eyes, savouring the warmth. He had deliberately arrived early to set up a small picnic he'd brought with him from the caves; some papayas he'd procured from Sun's garden, two cooked fish wrapped in a clean white t-shirt, and - and this he knew would make her smile - a tiny bag of Hershey's kisses he'd smuggled out of camp after he found them in a suitcase that had somehow gotten left aside. Jack spread out an Oceanic Airlines blanket, placed the few meagre items atop it, along with the small bunch of flowers he'd picked. The mandatory water bottle joined the meal, and just to make it complete he added the disposable camera from his rucksack. Jack smiled. It felt like a night of change and of steps forward; the lick of lilac and gold across the sky, the sliver of moon appearing like a memory.  
He unbuttoned his plaid shirt in the evening warmth, removed his boots and socks; rolled up the legs of his jeans to calf level and sat on a rock beside the water, his feet dangling into the crystal clear liquid. And he daydreamed of Kate.

_"Well I could love you forever  
And we both know  
Never say never  
Well it's taken me a while  
We've been so many miles  
Find me here tonight  
And tell me something new  
Find me  
Unwind me"_

The feel of her lips on his… like velvet, like melting ice cream, like a dream. He'd opened his eyes, had had to, to make sure this was really happening. She had looked beautiful. She always looked beautiful, but there was something in that moment… like a guard let down, she looked peaceful and complete in a way he'd never seen her before. Her face had never looked so trusting before. Like she'd have let him lead her away and not question, not run, for once.

He knew they'd be taking things slowly. Jack could see so much insecurity nestled in Kate, as he knew he had himself; there was so, so much he didn't know, wondered even now if Kate would tell him. He knew he needed to make sure she was comfortable and knew he wasn't going to judge her or change his mind about her for anything that had happened in her past. Kate was Kate, and he was falling so fast for who she was now, no matter what had happened before. He could feel her presence invading him, like a cure for years of searching for someone who made him feel like she did; not just needed and reliable like Sarah had, but trusted, trustworthy, strong and weak all at once, and wanting to know her inside out, every fear and scar and secret passion. Not just wanting to fix her and nothing more. Jack grinned into the evening. He could not wait to see her again. The smile he knew would be there, shy and happy and matching his own. Her eyes filled with all he knew she'd one day say, but not all tonight, not all for a long, long time maybe.

That was when he realised. It was no longer just after sunset. It was maybe an hour after, the dark filtering over the remnants of light, night well and truly on the way. Jack had gotten so caught up in his daydreams he hadn't noticed the time pass. Kate wasn't late. It wasn't her style. And he had seen; seen how much she had been looking forward to this 'date' just as he had, seen her suppress her excitement and joy. He glanced about, that she wasn't watching him from the jungle or had even crept past him jokingly and went for a swim. Nothing. No movement, no flash of brunette hair or tanned skin.

She had gone for the walk hours ago, hours and hours. Lost? Jack doubted it; Kate knew that stretch of land so well, had made the trails herself, and knew to climb a tree if she did get disorientated. Held up at camp, maybe… but not for this long. Even if something had happened to someone, he as the doctor would have been alerted immediately. 

Jack could feel the worry rising, a lump in his chest that wouldn't shift. If she wasn't here, or in the jungle or at the beach; then where was she?

The shadow moved over her. Its owner was in the cave now, in the darkness of the corner, with quick heavy breathing. She could smell her captor. He was stale, damp, unwashed. Kate didn't dare open her eyes.

_You go back to your mother's house later that day. You cover your bruises with jeans and a thick hooded top, keep your head down so to hide the mark upon your cheek. You have scrubbed your body until it is red and angry. You want to forget him, forget that man. You bury the memory to the back of your head, filling yourself with blame. He was twenty eight and took advantage and you know all that, somewhere deep down. But the blame and guilt fills you like viscous liquid._

Your father drives you back, and you try to make light conversation about the class clown Jamie, or how when you went on vacation to Florida years ago your dad wouldn't go on Tower of Terror at MGM Studios, or what you want to after finishing school. And he smiles and jokes back, but he knows something is wrong, you can see it in his eyes as he sees it in yours. When you pull up to your mother's house, twice as big as his, you see the curtains twitch in the den and you know your stepfather is home. You can't deal with his criticism, not now, not now. Your father sees the movement too and asks if you're okay, says you can come back to his tonight if you want; but you say no, it's okay, you have homework and a media project to hand in tomorrow. But inside you are calling out, through the pain of the other night and months of being told you're not good enough; Save me, save me…

Kate swallowed in the dark of her cell as her captor neared. _Save me, Jack…_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6 - No Peace To Be Found**  
_22/10/5_

He thundered through the jungle. He scrambled through thickets of shrubbery, clambered over fallen timber, tripped and fell and bled and ran. His world spun, his head flipping up and back and round, praying for a flash of skin, material, anything. The sky was so dark above him, and the next day so blue, and then black again; the contradictions colliding, compounding. He searched the beach. He ran for miles along it, and miles back, he scanned the ocean and it was all he could do to stop himself diving into the waves under the stars that first night; convinced each moonlit wash was a hand held up, an ivory-skinned cheek. He grabbed people, literally shook them by the shoulders, tried to calm his voice as he asked them; have you see her, have you seen her, have you seen her. His count to five rule was banished, forgotten, lost; the fear permeated through him, soaked him, and Jack made no effort to block it out. It fuelled him. It drove each flying step he took. It angered him and terrified him and mocked him. And Jack thundered on, saw her face, felt her frame, felt his heart stumble; searched for every second the daylight gave him and waited for the night to pass.

The first night, as he ran back to camp; he could feel the hope in his heart. He was so sure he had just overreacted, maybe she had forgotten, or been held up, or changed her mind, or just been scared. The options flooded his mind as he trampled down the path through the jungle. He was trying to convince himself, he would later realise. A voice to calm him, because her voice wasn't here, and someone needed to tell him. And then, as the hours passed, and he ran into each camp to no Kate, and no knowledge of her whereabouts… the fear started to creep into him, like an niggling itch, a tiny voice that grew ever louder. Michael and Walt hadn't seen her. Jin didn't understand. Sun had been alone all day. Hurley and Charlie shook their heads wordlessly. Locke… Locke asked all the 'right' questions, when had Jack last seen her, how had she seemed, where had she gone. Jack answered, and knew these were the right things to concentrate on, but standing still felt so pointless, hopeless, so slow. The night was descending too fast and there were too few torches, too few people, too many horrific possibilities and too much island.

Sawyer wandered into the caves a few minutes after Jack had returned from the beach; Jack could see the swelling around his nose and eyes, the bruises he had laid upon him. Jack silently approached him, met his eyes, indicated for Sawyer to follow him. He could see the southerner about to object, a snide comment resting upon his lips; but then he had seen Jack's eyes, something like terror filling them, and left his bottles at the waterfall and followed him.

Jack put it simply. "Have you seen Kate?"

"Freckles? Not since you were laying punches into me Doc, no. Why?"

Jack sighed. Sawyer had been his last hope. The last person he hadn't asked, the only person he could really imagine Kate going to anyway. He had almost convinced himself she'd be with him. Convinced himself, because the other possibility was too much, too incomprehensible.

"She's missing."

"Woah, doc, what the hell did you do to her after I left? What did you say?" Sawyer's words tumbled out of him. There was something worrying about Kate missing. She was so tough, so independent, so… unbreakable. She couldn't be missing. Could she?

"Like that's any of your business."

"Doc, if she's missing, it _is_ my business. It's everyone's business, if you were the last one to see her, so just tell me, yeh?"

Jack swallowed. "You left. Kate got kinda emotional, pissed at me for jumping to conclusions… we made it up, and…"

"And I can probably guess the rest. Doctors and nurses?"

Jack gave an almost imperceptible nod. But the grin that should have accompanied it, the joy in his heart; they were missing, missing with Kate, that beautiful girl, _his_ beautiful girl.

Sawyer gave a snide smile. "Well it took ya's long enough, Christ, I was gonna have a crack at that myself."

"Well she's missing, Sawyer, so I'll make sure that happens just as soon as we find her." The anger filled Jack's voice.

Sawyer didn't flinch. "Have you checked everywhere? Maybe she's just picking fruit or on one of her famous hikes or-"

"She was supposed to meet me." Jack interjected. "She didn't show. I've been searching for two and half hours, I've asked everyone and looked everywhere I can think of or get to now it's getting so dark. You... You were my last chance." Jack bowed his head. He prayed this was all a nightmare. He pinched himself, angry and hard, but no eyes flickered open and no dream dissolved. Why did he let her wander off alone? Had she just gotten lost somewhere unfamiliar? There had been no noises from the jungle, no falling trees and moaning, thank god. But Claire had disappeared and it had nothing to do with monsters or supernatural forces. The Others… if Rousseau was right, they were out there, and Jack knew not who they were or what they were capable of. He wanted to run, screaming her name in the jungle, turn the island upside down and shake her out.

"Okay." Sawyer processed this information. "And you don't think…" He stopped.

"I don't think what?"

Sawyer sighed. "That maybe Kate's just being Kate. Hell, she killed the last boy she got all serious and jiggy with. Maybe she's just frightened herself into believing it could happen again, or that with all the she's tallied up back in the real world, she doesn't deserve what she sees in you."

"What does she see in me?" Jack said unconsciously.

"Judging by the way her lil ol' eyes light up whenever you enter the roo… cave, I'd say she appreciates your bed side manner, for some reason. I'm just saying, Jacko. Here's you with your Hippopotamus Oath and saving this and that and the other, and she's stealing cars and changing her hair colour to stay on the run from a murder charge." Sawyer shrugged. 

Jack considered the other man's words. For all the crap he spoke, Sawyer did sometimes say something worth listening to. Kate had run from him before, run so fast and so hard she hadn't even notice the cuts in her feet. He knew she had an endless history to tell him; things he might well dislike hearing or imagining. But… Kate wasn't stupid. Far from it. She wouldn't stay out in the jungle through the night just to avoid him. She would have returned, to the beach or even to Sawyer's tent so to not be in hers when he inevitably came looking. She would have come and apologised to him, explained herself, shown herself so he wouldn't worry. At the very least, someone would have seen her return to camp. And… Jack closed his eyes. He could still see her standing in front of him. Could see _her_ lean in to kiss _him_, the fledgling trust in her eyes, her hand holding on to his long after she could have let go. No. She had wanted all the things that he too longed for; the long talks, the painful honesty, the embarrassing anecdotes of teenage shenanigans. She had wanted to learn to trust him.

Jack opened his eyes. "I know all that. She wanted to work through it. She wanted to tell me, to trust me."

Sawyer could hear the conviction in Jack's words. "Okay."

And it was then the true panic had set into Jack. The way Sawyer began to fill water bottles and sent people off to gather all their friends and anyone else they could find. It was getting on for ten o'clock by the time everyone was assembled. Sawyer handed out water bottles, Vincent barked in ignorant excitement at the late-night activity. And everyone turned to Jack. Everyone turned to their leader, for guidance and instruction and explanation.

He didn't bother with niceties or thanking them. He was numb, blunt, raw. Kate was missing. She had been for three hours. He had searched all areas as best he could in fading light and by himself. All the details they needed to know. He allocated torches and search areas and people to remain at camp with Walt and Aaron. He found peace, for a second… peace in doing something productive, in not being alone with only the unremitting island and his own terror to haunt him. Peace in describing Kate's clothes and backpack and entrance point into the jungle. Peace, because he needed something, something to cling on to in memory; because in five minutes when he sent the search parties off for as long as they could manage before pitch black set in, someone could cry out. Someone could find her backpack, or a pool of blood, or a scrap of fabric. Or a body. And all peace could tumble and fall and be trampled on, forever.

Each band of brothers left, their torch lights like trails, like headlights in a desolate city. Jack composed himself, made sure his boot laces were double knotted, ran his hands down his face. Sawyer, surprisingly, had deliberately stayed behind to search with him; Jack didn't know whether to be glad or annoyed. At least he knew how much Sawyer cared for Kate, under all the nicknames and wind ups. At least the endless stream of put downs and banter would distract him from the ache and throb inside him. Jack stared into the encroaching dark. _Kate… where are you. Come back to me. Just come back to me and I'll never let you go again. I promise._

"Let's go, soldier." Sawyer sauntered past Jack, their torch in his hand. Jack snapped from his prayer, blinking hard; grabbed his gear and jogged after Sawyer. He took the torch and the lead from the other man; this was his search, for his girl. If they stumbled upon her, he needed it to be him first.

And so they searched; long after they should have gone back to camp, long after it wasn't safe to remain in the jungle. They cut large chunks of foliage away with sharpened hunting knives, revealing nothing but dirt, dead leaves, tree roots. Jack didn't know whether to feel glad or disappointed; glad Kate wasn't lying there mangled and silent, but aching for a clue, a sign, as to her whereabouts. He could feel the tiredness weighing down his eyelids, two nights with no sleep; but forced them back open and splashed water over his face. Several times Sawyer said they must go back, must go no further. But Jack's heart propelled him forward, just another mile, and another, and another. He had no food inside him. He had no energy left. Their water had run out an hour ago. Two hundred or so metres ahead of Sawyer, Jack slipped in some viscous mud. He fell to his hands and knees, turned on his back, and stared to the sky.

_My lips are on yours. It is sunny, the day is young but warm; you are sitting on a rock beside the swimming hole in nothing but my dirty checked shirt. I have been swimming, am fresh and feel new, whole. I have swum underwater to your perch and knew you would have seen me, so when I surfaced you were waiting. We are so comfortable around each other. I have raised myself up out the water, my whole bare body rippled and dripping with water, and you have leaned down and found my lips, my tongue. Each time you meet my eyes, it's like your soul touches mine; a shudder runs the whole length of me, mercury in a thermometer. I can feel you smile as we kiss, your teeth gently grip my lower lip, your hand rests on my chest. I could stay here forever. I'll never let you go. I promise you._

You grin mischievously. I know what you are planning; that hand on my chest pushes me back, but you are still kissing me, and my hand catches yours as I fall. You laugh, your eyes light up, as we tumble into crystal water… and then you are under too, and your hair spills around you like streamers. I kiss you under the water, giving you air and love all at once. We break the surface together, and you are wild; like you need me in that moment, need me more than you ever have. It's like we can't be close enough. We have so much affection and gentleness between us, delicate touches and looks that say more than words ever could; your eyes meet mine now, and I can see all of you, all your naked history and vulnerability. The guilt and shame you hide, all the love you have to give, all the trust you give me piece by piece. And need and desire. You grip me, and I am hard as you knew I'd be; you slide down upon me, meeting me and needing me to fill you. There is resistance for just a second; and in that second you mouth to me, "Don't let me go…"_. And then I am in you, all of me, and I am complete. You gasp, press your face to mine; and your eyes have never left mine. Your hands are on my back, gripping the tough skin, nails digging in, but I don't mind. Usually you are delicate in making love; we are slow and lazy and draw out each movement, draw out the ecstasy and closeness. But today… today it is like you need only to have me in you, over and over, quick and breath catching and ravenous. It's just minutes before I can hear your breath quickening, rapid and shallow; your tongue delves deep into my mouth, and I want to suck you dry, lick every inch of you, know you inside out. Your eyes meet mine again as you tighten, pulsating around me; and I can't hold back, don't, and together we let go._

It is long moments before I can catch my breath again. I kiss you on the forehead, hold your quivering, spent body against mine, the water gently lapping into us. You whisper something.

"What was that?" I ask softly. I don't want to break this silence, this intimacy, like a cocoon enclosing us.

"What's your favourite colour?" You whisper again. You look up at me, stroke the edge of my collarbone.

I nearly laugh, but then I realise you are right. There's all these tiny things we don't know about each other, like the microscopic pieces of a shattered pane of glass. I can't wait, to spend the rest of my life finding each and every one out. I grin and kiss you on the lips.

"Green."

"Green?"

"Mm hmm."

"Huh." You smile in thought. You are so beautiful. You glance around at the trees, the bushes, the endless plants we haven't identified. "You should be alright here then."

I smile, tuck a tendril of wet hair behind your ear. "What's yours?

You look at me, open your mouth. "Well…"

Sawyer's face cut through Jack's reverie, splitting the starry sky. He asked for no explanation for Jack's position, and offered him no help. "Doc, we're going back. Now." He turned and slowly trudged back through the footprints they had made, guided by moonlight.

Jack blinked. Of course he couldn't finish the daydream. That was the life another he and Kate were living, in one of those other light years, in some far off corner of this infinite universe. He searched amongst the stars. Here… here, he couldn't finish her words because he didn't know the answer. He didn't know Kate's favourite colour, or lucky number, or middle name, or even where she grew up. He felt like he knew her inside out, and didn't know her at all.

He got up. There was something new in his eyes, something definite and firm and unmoving. Autopilot set in. _I won't let you go, Kate… I'll never let you go. And then I'll spend the rest of my life, finding out each tiny detail of yours._

He started the long walk back to camp.

The next day was the same. And the next night. Sawyer moved temporarily to the caves so they could search at first light, and they stayed out all the next day, working systematically over the area, back and forth like ploughing a field. Jack was on autopilot. The fear still flooded him but he let it in, constantly, because it drove him. He walked for miles upon miles. There were blisters on his feet and hands, his back ached, the sun beat down and filled him with exhaustion, and still he pushed on. For he knew; no peace would be found, not until she was back with him, and he could fix all those things which hurt her. God, he ached with the constant worry for her, was she alive, was she being hurt, who had her. If Jack truly let all the images in, they would overwhelm him. And so he let only one in. That image from four long days ago, as he emerged from the jungle to find her silhouetted in the dawn, and held his hands up to frame the moment. He carried the disposable camera with him everywhere, to remind him; one day soon when Kate was back, and cuts had been treated and rest been had, they'd go up to the waterhole and talk and laugh and he'd hold her so close. He'd hold her, and never let her go. He'd take the camera out, they'd snap a cheesy picture, all smiles and endless happiness and falling in love. And he'd curl up with her and think how he didn't need to sleep, for all his dreams had already come true.

But for now, each night he fell to bed, to rest that would never come, to a space at his side that though Kate had never filled, felt empty and hollow. The darkness mocked him, pushed him back from his task, left him tethered in confusion and terror at what it held. And hour upon hour he woke, never diving down deep in sleep, always riding on the surface, watching for Kate on the shore. Jack would run to the edge of the caves, the edge of light from the glowing fire like a line he mustn't cross; stand there as if under house arrest. The darkness hung like a sheet in front of him, inpenetrable… and he knew she was out there somewhere, cloaked and hidden from him. And he stood. And waited. Waiting for morning. Waiting to search again. Waiting for Kate, and peace, to be found.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7 - Cocooned**  
_26/10/5_

_He's here. You can sense him through the fog in your brain, through the silence and confusion which surrounds you… that strong body, those hands which will lead you to freedom, and safety, and _life_. You stir, send pulses from your brain to your limbs; get up, move, reach out. But nothing happens. Nothing stirs. It's like your hands are tied, outwith your control, and through the fog you can remember screaming, a struggle, trying to run away, or run back. There was excitement, a vague feeling of joy, or something new; suddenly run down by fear and anger and confusion, crushed by the roadside. But here's the fog again, that mist which swirls in and means you can't open your eyes, or articulate, or even _dream_. You would smile, if you could. It's been a long, long time since you dared to dream._

The cave was dark as she woke… dark and rancid, a stench like damp or trapped air; Kate gagged on it, choking on the wad of fabric knotted into her parched mouth. Her whole world seemed to spin and collide, eyes dipping back and forth; too many drinks, or a carousel ride. But she wasn't five, and there was no fair in town; no cotton candy and no safe hand to hold. Just darkness, stretching for as far as she could sense… darkness and unknowing of what lay in wait. The confusion rocked through her, the endless lengths of time that could be minutes or weeks, the drowsiness that seemed to seep into her without warning. She wondered when she last ate, drank, spoke; how long had passed between then and now. She closed her eyes, pressed the lids together; so hard that colours started to dance in her conscious, scarlets and pinks and tangerines. She stared at those dots of pain for long moments, followed their floating forms over her retina; like precious jewels after the endless waking to black, and no spectrum of light. They stirred something within her, a memory she thought lost; standing on the shore, that finite line between land and sea, watching the sun rise and fill the day with light and hope. She could see the water rushing over her feet, eager to reach inland… could imagine a map, the outline of the island against the ocean, and she merged into both. And Jack wandering over, like a hallucination or early morning dream. And being so very real.

Was it day? Night? Dusk? Kate craned her neck, tried to see that vein of light, that lifeline to her timeless world. There was nothing and no-one; no rustle of leaves, no inhalation, no bubbling water. She was cocooned here; but not cocooned as she felt with Jack, not safe and protected and secure… but trapped, held against her will and feeling ever more out of control of her destiny. No matter what had happened in the past, Kate had known that she was in charge; of all those running days, the endless identities and lost friendships. She had made her own tears. She had some say upon arrival at the island even; with nowhere to run she stayed, ensured she involved herself with every activity, those virgin hikes and Sayiid's antennas and the garden. She was beginning to enjoy her cocoon back at camp… the feeling of being part of a community again, an important part even. Having friends and shared jokes and being relaxed; those little things she had missed out on her whole adult life. Hell, a steady job even; picking fruit wasn't exactly highly paid but she was respected and thanked for her efforts, and knew the others appreciated it. Of course, she always saved the plumpest, juiciest fruits for Jack… would hide them in his supplies or fresh clothes, like a surprise or a love letter. A little something; like a consolation prize instead of all those letters she had written in her head, those endless times she had told him everything, his thousand different reactions. He hugged her. He stormed off. He shook his head, disbelief and disappointment flooding his features. She chickened out, and didn't tell him at all.

But now… would she ever see him again? Have the chance to fall to his arms, to be honest, to cry out all her woes? A slow trickle appeared down Kate's cheek; her body which could no longer provide saliva, somehow still so full of long lost tears. A sob escaped her cracked lips, echoed through the desolution of the cave; bounced off those invisible boundaries and came back to haunt her. She tried to bring her hand up to wipe away the tears; forgot for a second that she was gagged and bound, unable to do even the most basic instinctive action. And so the tears remained, engraved into her fragile skin… but like so many tears before, she didn't fight the grief or deny it. Kate sank into herself, her body visibly jolting with weakness and uncertainty… uncertain of the date or time or if she was even still alive. Maybe this was limbo. Maybe this was punishment for all the harm she'd done.

Maybe this was hell.

"Jack…" She croaked out. She was beyond caring about dignity or who was out there. Anything was better than this, this infinite not knowing, this continual bewilderment. "Jack…"

Kate caught her breath. Was that another's breathing she had heard? A footstep, a broken twig? Had someone been hiding, waiting in those devious shadows all this time… the haze was filling her again. "Jack?" She cried one last time, lost and desperate, longing to wake and find herself in the midst of nothing but a nightmare, and he there beside her.

There was no reply; just stillness and silence. Nothing but that silence that drowned her, suffocated her… nothing but hallucinations, now, to mock her. A scrape of a boot against the ground… the movement of air through the cave. And then… a voice. And she wasn't hallucinating at all.

"He ain't here for you now, princess."

Kate jerked in fright. She physically felt her body react against the constraints, tightening as she struggled; the fear, that with nowhere else to go, dived right back inside her heart and rippled through her, a wave that crashed. She tried to count to five. She tried to calm herself, stop the vulnerability from being exposed… but then, what was the point? She was gagged and bound, had been for god knows how long; locked and lost. She had cried; surprised even herself in realising she was still crying. She had no energy left, not a single drop, to break free or break down or put up that mask she carried like a familiar friend.

"Who are you?" She whispered thickly through the material clogging her throat. It was the first question to reach her lips; the first of the queue that stretched back and back in her mind.

"Who am I?" The voice mocked. Female, Kate noted this time, with surprise. Something bassy in her voice, something that boomed like dynamite through the air. "Honey, you trust me on this one. You don't wanna know."

Kate processed this, turned it over in her mind. The Others? She had no fuel left to think or develop rational thought. "Why am I here?" She swallowed, awkward against the constraint, but her whole mouth was a desert; dry and tacky, her tongue swollen. She dissolved into a coughing fit, the irritation of the dusty air exacerbating, long ago in the distant past. It takes all your energy. You lift a finger, your index finger, scrape it like a whisper along the back of his hand, which rests atop yours.

"Katie…" He looks from your pale hand, to your face, your eyes which ask a thousand questions. He sees you try to speak.

"Katie, hunny, they put a tube down your throat to help you breathe. It's okay, you just can't speak right now." His whole body is clenched in fear and concern. His eyes; those eyes you have never seen cry before, those eyes which flit, glassy before your own… they cut through the smog of the sedatives. You implore of him, silently. What happened… help me put these pieces all together, Daddy…__

He takes your hand, smoothes your bangs back from your face. "The doctors… they say you might not remember exactly what happened, sweetie. No-one knows, except you and … Richard." He says your stepfather's name cautiously, gauging your reaction. You give the tiniest of nods.

"There was a pretty big fire, at Richard's company offices, two nights ago. Someone called the fire brigade after seeing the flames and hearing arguing from the street." He swallows. "They managed to drag you out of the lobby… they think you were trying to get out but the smoke inhalation overwhelmed you."

Richard?_ Your eyes beg._

"Richard… Richard was upstairs in the boardroom. They think he went there to try and escape the flames but then got trapped. They couldn't get to him so easily, Katie. The fire was out of control in the main stairwell…"

Oh god, this can't be happening. Clarity is filling you, seeping into you too much now; you clamber to find ignorance once more, but it is lost.__

"He's alive, Katie, but barely. He's pretty badly burnt and like you he had massive smoke inhalation. That's why you're intubated." Your father looks sad, and something far, far worse… he looks so disappointed in you, disappointed and lacking motivation or belief in you. Relieved you are alive, but with something like shame in his irises. "They say the fire was started deliberately. With gasoline."

He says this last part slowly, quietly. He scans your eyes. He wants to find the five year old again, the one who can curl up on his knee, the one who's biggest fault is being too cute. He searches for her, and though you know she is in here somewhere… she's lost, even to you.

It's all rushing back to you now, the pieces colliding violently and crashing into place; those memories you want to record over, instead playing back over and over, on loop. The years of torment and criticism… the excitement when Richard had invited you to the advertisement offices that night, the promise of an apprenticeship and your silent vow to try and make the best of this opportunity, not for Richard or your Mom but for your Dad. Because he hasn't deserved any of the you've gotten messed up in these last two years, all the accompanying grief he's been landed with; the move to Iowa just to be near you, and despite the grounding influence of Tom, you still getting into endless trouble at school and with the police. How you'd arrived at the building, smart and bubbling with enthusiasm to be shown round after everyone else had finished work; and then that smarmy grin on his face, that this had all been a cruel joke and he wouldn't let you join the team if you got a degree from Harvard. How the anger frothed inside you. How it bubbled and curdled, boiled over; treated this way by him since childhood, through no fault of yours other than existing. Exisiting and bringing with you the baggage of your father, and the life your mom had before.

You lost control; drove to the nearest gas station and filled two portable tanks with gasoline. Your mind was spinning, unsure of what you were doing… rationality buried under all those years of silence and pretence, lies to your father that no, Richard was never mean to you. Those words, those words he murmured at every opportunity, like a scratched CD in your mind; you secured the gas in the back, drove to the offices, sat with the engine running. Considered what you were planning. Richard's car wasn't visible; he must have gone home. He didn't know you had a key cut a year back to steal stationary supplies to sell on. That you overheard the alarm security code is your mom's birthday. Maybe just put the gasoline down. Maybe just give him a fright. Maybe just give him some of his own medicine.

You worked systematically. The stairwell. The boardroom. The main partner's offices. All along the corridors. And then, the final prize; Richard's office. The smell of the liquid was becoming intoxicating, childhood memories of road trips and service stations, filling up on gas and milk duds and Hershey's kisses. You in the back seat of the car, endless plush toys; and you hidden amongst them all, reading Hiking: Where, Why and How_._

And then it was done, all his precious work soaked through; the computer, his prize possession, ruined. You backed out, surveying your handiwork; smiling maybe. You turned to leave. Richard.

You hated how calm he was. You wanted him to be fuming, angry, upset; all those things lying dormant within you, silenced by his eyes. He wandered into the glass box, picked up some papers, tossed them to one side; found his computer keyboard; turned it upside down and let the liquid pour out of it, splashing to the carpet. And that's when the anger started.

He smashed the keyboard against a filing cabinet. Smashed_. You heard the plastic splinter. He ripped the monitor plug from the wall, plummeted it to the floor; the screen shattered against a chair leg, the glass scattering and falling. He called you every name he could think of, all the ones you'd heard before and some more beside. He screamed about you were a failure, how just because you'd not made anything of your life and you didn't bother going to school, you wanted to wreck his too._

And then he said it. He stopped shouting. He walked up to you, too calm and too complacent. "You're not good enough… You're just not good enough, Katie."

You flipped. You absolutely flipped. "Don't you dare." The words were seething, dripping with threat. "Don't you dare call me that. Only my father calls me that."

"Precious daddy dear? Your little saviour?" He sniggered. "How touching."

"What do you have against me, huh?" You were screaming now, shrill and uncontrolled anger seeping from you. "What did I ever do to deserve all the you give me?"

He just looked at you. Just looked you up and down, and smiled like the victor. Like you were some troublesome competition he could flick away with his little finger.

That was it. You could feel the power soar within you. The hate overwhelming everything you knew, all of rational Kate gone and forgotten. Your trembling fingers lifted the lighter from your pocket; that smooth silver, the scorch of the mechanism. "I'll show you just how good I am."

But that's as far as you can remember. You cannot squeeze the next detail from your smoke-fogged brain; did you flick the switch? Was there a struggle, was it accidental? The tears fill your eyes, pool over, spilling down your cheeks. Why didn't you mention Richard's endless put downs and criticism before? Why have you left your Dad ignorant all this time? He sees your grief; leans in and, ever so gently, surrounds you in that familiar bear hug. But this one is tinged, broken.

"The police… they found your fingerprints on the lighter, Katie. And they've got video footage of you buying six litres of gas, and entering the offices without permission or supervision." His voice is sad. Just heartbreakingly, achingly, sad.

And the cocoon you have formed with him, suddenly breaks and shatters; he pulls away before you do, for the first time since you turned into a teenager. He refuses to meet your eyes, and you have no words. You want to rip this tube from your throat, tell him everything, explain; but your Dad walks from the room, his figure hunched and mutated in grief.

And that's when you realise; you must run. Run away from this life that you've wrecked, from his life that you've wrecked, from all the barrage of criticism and blame you know is awaiting you when you see your mother, or Richard, or when the inevitable trial begins. From the inevitable guilty verdict; kid who got on the wrong side of the tracks, a shoplifter, a known truant, isolated and crying for attention.

That's not who I am_, you want to scream. _I am good enough.

"I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly  
I'll do what it takes till I touch the sky  
Make a wish, take a chance,  
Make a change, and break away  
Out of the darkness and into the sun"


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8 - Two Specks Upon This World**  
_29-30/10/5_

She watched her. She watched her chest rise up and down, slow and shallow; watched her face twist in untold dreams, nightmares unfolding into reality. She watched her from the corner of the cave, hidden in the black ink of shadow; hidden in her own thoughts and from those tears which occasionally threatened. She watched her face, growing paler daily, now a shock of white against dark curls; and wondered why he hadn't come to her yet.

She could remember so clearly that first flash of consciousness, opening her eyes to such immense pain; juxtaposed by that slick of blue sky, white beach, the flaming tail of the plane burning and breaking up maybe a half mile away from her. Her first thought - of him; not the deep gash in her thigh or blood flowing from her temple, but him; and then that terrible memory of him kissing her forehead, _"I'll be right back…"_; his footfalls to the cabin crew station in between the two economy class sections to ask for some napkins for his spilt drink. And then the turbulence; that first shudder of the plane against invisible forces, just as he fell from her line of sight. She had been just about to get out of her seat to find him when the second wave had hit, and the third; luggage falling like candy from the overhead lockers, screams from strangers, terrified eyes which darted around. Her eyes never leaving that dividing curtain, praying over and over for him to dash through it, hurdle over the blocked aisle back to his seat… but the plane kept falling, and his oxygen mask went unused and redundant, and the curtain moved only with the turbulence. Her heart felt on fire. She strained her eyes, past all the chaos and terror, convinced that if she pictured it for long enough, the vision of him coming to her would appear as fact. And then, all thoughts but her own survival gone, as the plane plummeted and broke apart… her breathing lurching, filled with terror, wanting to vomit and cry and just _live_. And that horrid, petrifying vision of the plane splintering and erupting, dividing and taking him from her… and she staring to the front as the whole tail section broke off, and she within it; falling, and unable to breathe, suffocating on her own terror, and blacking out.

Faith has known he was dead; he had to be, surely? He wasn't strapped in as heavy cases fell, as that huge unbreakable vehicle did the unthinkable and shattered. He was too near where all that suction would have been as her tail section ruptured and departed. But she could close her eyes. She could still close her eyes and see that vaguely unshaven chin, his number one close crop, the suits that always adorned his muscular frame. She and Aidan had been married just four months. They were off to Los Angeles to visit his grandmother, this tiny frail woman in a tiny frail nursing home, who was losing her battle with myeloma. Her bone marrow was failing her, day by precious day; and Aidan, raised in Montana with his grandparents living in the same house, had needed to see her that one last time before she died. And he wanted Faith to meet her, this woman who had taught him all those tiny things which made him Aidan. How to hold out a chair for a lady as she sat down. How to bake cookies. How to make snow angels in the powdery white landscape of harsh Montana winters. So again they delayed the honeymoon. And boarded Oceanic Airlines Flight 815.

And that's when she lost him.

That's when her world began to fall apart, layer by layer, until all she knew were days and nights filled with hot, scalding tears. The days passed them by… others built shelters and shared meagre rations of an unidentified fruit, spelt out 'SOS' in huge letters of wood and rocks. Faith wandered in and out of consciousness, to some new stranger offering her muddy water and a shoulder to cry on. She blinded herself to any kind of reality. She wandered in starved circles, calling his name. She collapsed, countless times, and woke to find herself again being carried back to camp by Steve, or Riley, or Adam. Never him. Never her husband. Never again.

"_I can't be  
Losing sleep over this  
No I can't  
And now I cannot stop pacing  
Give me a few hours  
I'll have this all sorted out  
If my mind would just stop racing_

This cannot be happening

This is over my head  
But underneath my feet  
'Cause by tomorrow morning I'll have this thing beat  
And everything will be back to way that it was"

Then he came back to her, suddenly and just when she had begun to truly leave hope behind her. He would never speak, never run to her; just appear behind a tree, along the beach. And she knew, how he was just waiting 'til they could be alone, to explain away the weeks he had been missing. Oh, she told the others, but they lied and said they couldn't see him; would give her a concerned look, offer water and ask if she wanted to talk. But she knew, knew they were tricking her; how they didn't want another mouth to feed, how they were jealous that _she_ she found _him_ when they had lost so much themselves. She would sit alone in the sand, tracing his name into the grainy particles over and over, trying to make it perfect for him. She'd forget how the tide was rising. She'd forget how the sun was beating down upon her, how she hadn't eaten in days; just sit and carve their names into hearts, and wait for him to come back to her. And then just as she made it perfect; a symmetrical heart and the 'F' of her name intertwining exactly with his 'A'… the sea would come in and engulf her, engulf them; and the beach would be smooth again. And Faith would sigh, scoot three feet up the beach on wasting limbs; and start all over again.

Sometimes it would be days between his visits, sometimes just minutes… and then, Faith didn't know when, a week ago maybe; he hadn't come to see her in days, no matter how perfect she had made her engravings. Dawn was just appearing on the third day, that slick of gold like gift wrap to a new day; and she had suddenly known what he wanted. He wanted her to follow him, through that spot in the jungle where she had last seen him. She scrambled to her feet for the first time in days. She fell. She rose again. And fell. There was no strength left in her.

And so she ate for him; wolfed down whole chunks of the star fruit and papaya the others religiously lay down beside her each morning and night, the fruit she usually barely nibbled at. She could physically feel herself being restored as those sweet, juicy, greedy chunks slid down her throat. She barely bothered chewing. Faith ate until she needed to vomit, and continued. Who knew how far away he would be waiting for her. She'd go to the ends of the earth.

She walked for every hour of daylight that first day. She was clever, she told herself, finding all those subtle clues he left her that no-one else would have noticed. A broken branch, some fallen leaves, the angle of a certain plant. Faith slept in a clearing, and woke before the night had even passed; picked her way down the steep hillside by the moonlight. She had crossed the middle of the island by the end og,  
I'll have this thing beat  
And everything will be back to the way that it was  
I wish that it was just that easy

'Cause I'm waiting for tonight  
Then waiting for tomorrow  
And I'm somewhere in between  
What is real and just a dream"

How could a week have passed? How could forty people be searching near enough every inch of daylight the gods sent, and still seven days have passed with no sign, no trace? Forty times seven. Easy, thought Jack. Four times seven is twenty eight, so forty times is two hundred and eight. Two hundred and eighty days, effectively, of searching, if one took each person separately. And still… nothing and nobody, no scrap of fabric, no footprint encased in mud… no _Kate_. The original circular perimeter had been doubled, and tripled until the search area was effectively the whole island, or as much as they could safely reach. Ever expanding circles, and Jack didn't care for safety, not anymore.

Today was the seventh day. Sunday. The Sabbath day, Jack pondered as dug his sharp walking stick into the moist ground and clambered through the waist high foliage. Religion never had been high on his list of things to indulge time in, but what the hell. He sent a quick prayer to the gods, to whichever felt so inclined to hear his pleas. _Send her back to me. Just send her back to me…_

He was a physical and mental wreck. Jack hadn't been back to the camp for three days; had set out on Thursday with his pack stuffed with medicines, fruit, bottles of water, clothing. And that tiny box of plastic; his hidden treasure of the disposable camera, his constant reminder that Kate would, one day, be back. Sawyer had tried to stop him from going off alone; but Jack knew he had to be alone for the kinds of stunts he was likely to try in hope of finding Kate. The kinds of danger he would willingly put himself into. He couldn't ask someone else to do that for her. He'd tried to explain, tried to explain without giving away all his heart.

"So let me get this straight." Sawyer had swallowed, tried to keep the harshness from his voice, aware that Jack would be straight back on the defensive. "You're gonna wander into lost freakin' world, with our good neighbours the giant polar bears and… the other thing, all by yourself with some aspirin and a nine millimetre? Now why the hell didn't I think of that?"

It had been all Jack could do to stop himself from pacing. He had one more night to wait until he could leave, eight more hours to sit and know that somewhere out there, Kate was wondering why he hadn't found her yet. He had wanted to sit in peace and prepare his mind, his strategy, his plan of action. He hadn't wanted to have to explain himself to an arrogant southerner.

"Look, Sawyer. I know you don't understand why I've got to do this but just leave me to it."

"I'm coming with you."

"You can't." Jack had stated firmly.

"And why's that Doc? Am I under house arrest all of a sudden? I haven't let you wander off any of the other days by yourself, but you think it's a good idea to skip on over to the other side of death trap island when your whole mind's on anything but being careful? No offence now but I'm kinda thinkin' one person lost is enough for one week. You go marching off into bear village alone and it's gonna be two pretty quickly."

"So what do you propose I do, Sawyer?" Jack had shouted at the other man across the clearing. "Sit around here and hope that whichever sicko has Kate decides to drop her home in time for bed one night? We've searched as far as we can with still being able to get back to camp before sundown. You and I, we've been over every inch, and you know as well as I do that she's not there." He had felt the emotion hitting the edge of each word, a knife blade glinting in the sun. "I can't ask you to take the risks I'll be willing to. There's no point two of us going up against the likely dangers when I can do it by myself."

Sawyer had strode over to him, straight through the ashes of the fire, spilling the grey dust like thick smoke into the air. "Look, Doc. I get that she's your girl and all that jazz. But there ain't no danger I wouldn't face for anyone I care about, whether it's Kate or my great aunt Jeannie. What makes you so sure you'll be able to push yourself so much further than me?"

"Because, Sawyer." Jack had tried to leave the conversation there. Tried to walk away. Tried to stop the tears that threatened to spill.

"Because what, Doc?"

"Because you're not falling in love with her."

Jack pushed on through the endless tall reeds, these razor sharp daggers that stretched on up into the sky, puncturing the clouds. The others had all promised him before he'd left the next day, that they'd keep searching as far as they could; and Jack knew they could, but doubted it would be to any avail. He doubted whoever had Kate had crossed the line of steep hills and precipices; virtually impossible with Kate unconscious, and not something she would ever agree to do without putting up what Jack knew would be a hell of a fight. Kate was nothing if not a fighter, and strong willed. But then there might have been a gun, maybe more than one person, maybe… maybe anything, there were just too many possibilities and horrific outcomes. Jack stopped briefly, took a long drink of water, took time to once again drop his pack and leap up to the first few branches of the nearest tree, to gain height and perspective upon his position. He stared at that line of impenetrable rock faces, the hills which ran like a scar through the island. And he was terrified.

Terrified of things he knew he mustn't think about, for they might never happen and he might find Kate at any moment. But those two ideas, they played on loop in his mind, a never ceasing reminder to keep moving forward. Away from the day, if it ever came, that he arrived back in camp to find people had stopped searching. To find people sitting around relaxing, looking up at him sadly; the day he'd have to give up hope, because there was none left to be found.

And the other fear; the one that seemed irrational even to him. Jack was petrified of forgetting what she looked like. Scared he'd wake one morning and not be able to see Kate's face, the way when it occasionally cracked into a smile, she had delicate dimples and eyes that sparkled; those pieces of hair she used like a barrier, the curve of her cheek. It had happened when his father died; as soon as that body bag had been zipped up again, Jack had lost him. Lost that face he knew better than his own, the one he'd longed to see pride in his whole life. It just seemed to disappear from every memory he owned, every picture he held in his mind. Her voice too. What if he forgot what she sounded like? The way she pronounced his name? The edge of worry he always wanted to bury in the folds of his shirt, hold her and rock her 'til she felt safe again. _Kate_, he whispered to the wind. _I'm coming._

Jack turned in circles as he reached the ground again, turned and spun and made himself dizzy with want to see a colour other than green. See an artificial colour, manmade and dyed, fabric or a shoe or just _anything_. He rotated on an axle; and thought not for the first time how in all the world, he was looking for one tiny person, one tiny speck upon this planet. The two of them, two invisible specks upon the world; and Jack circled and the fear grew within him at the thought of it. How they'd somehow collided once, in all the million paths they could have taken, theirs had crossed; and how he maybe didn't deserve to find her again, because he already lost her once.

Hours later, the sunset was hitting the peaks; Jack found himself in a small rough clearing beside what looked to be another large system of caves. He was soaked through; a freak shower had suddenly burst through from the heavens a half mile back, and the only shelter he could find was a slim concave dimple in an large teak tree. The shelter had proved less use than standing out in the rain itself, as huge droplets flooded down on him from the network of branches above; and so Jack gave up and pressed on, his grey t-shirt saturating and sticking to his sculpted chest and abs. And then as ever, as soon as the shower had started it stopped, leaving him sopping, the ground boggy and tiring.

Jack unrolled the tarpaulin he had taken from camp for this kind of weather, sat down upon it with his arms resting on bent knees. He knew he would have to start heading back tomorrow afternoon if there was no sign before then. He was getting desperate. He knew, that he'd gotten his hopes up too much, let himself believe Kate would wander out of the jungle towards him, unscathed and having just taken a wrong turn. He'd expected _something_. But it was like she'd vanished; like instead of both specks there was now just his, circling lonely upon a pivot, searching for his partner when she was no more to be found. Leaving nothing but a rainstorm and a memory, puddles in his footprints that turned orange in the sunset.

But then… Jack squinted, reassessed his vision. One of those patches of orange wasn't a footprint at all, the wrong shape, too synthetic a colour. Jack leapt from his exhausted position, suddenly awake and full of adrenaline and something like hope. He near tiptoed to the apparition, terrified it nothing more than a broken heart's mirage.

A morsel of cotton, like half a sleeve ripped in effort; threads trailing and the edges curling up. It was muddy and ripped but he knew exactly where it was from. Kate. Her favourite orange skinny top. His Kate; Jack whirled on the spot, twisting, not knowing what he expected to see. One thing he could see in his mind more clearly than anything; her face, worry lines, calling out to him. His heart thudded with hope and anticipation and terror, pure unabating terror. Those caves. Maybe?

Aware of the probably danger, Jack grabbed his pack, his sharpened stick and tucked the butt of his fully loaded nine millimetre firmly into the waistband of his jeans.

And those two specks upon the world, they moved ever so gradually closer again.

Kate awoke with a start. Her mind was clear, for once in as long as she now cared to remember. There was none of that now familiar cloudiness, the confusion which had hibernated within her. Her mind was clear and alert instantly. She spluttered against arid, pasty saliva, and it suddenly occurred to her also that her gag had been removed. _How long have I been here now?_

Her eyes gradually adjusted to the never ending darkness, blinking against the dryness and dust in the air. The shadows gradually formed, edges of grey in the pitch black.

Her captor was directly over her. Kate nearly screamed, that terror of a face forming in the dark where Kate had assumed there was only air and space. Her heart jerked, screamed into her rib cage, bolted. Her eyes were dark, inches from Kate's own wild irises. Her hair was greasy and fell in clammy strands right above Kate's face.

"Hello Kate."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9 - Only Human

_"Find me here  
And speak to me  
I want to feel you  
I need to hear you  
You are the light  
That's leading me  
To the place where I find peace  
Again"_

Jack. He was her first thought, always, when she woke or came to; he filtered through her dreams and for those few precious seconds after waking, Kate's mind didn't let her remember the darkness, or the cave, or the weakness eating into her; just the memory of something he had said, the bittersweet roughness of his palm, his eyes that locked on to hers and never looked away. The thought of him would push through, trying to merge with reality; trying to fit that feeling of safety with the bewilderment of stale air and paralysis. And then the dream would fade again, seeing it had no place in this dark world she now inhabited; slip away into the shadows, and leave her with nothing but memories she was terrified of forgetting, or never living again.

Today was different. There was a conscious thought in her head, not just the clarity that so contradicted every other time she had woken, dipped in haze and confusion; but something definitively different. The fact her captor had allowed her to see her. The initial shock and fear, that kick of adrenaline like a glass of ice water; had faded somehow into ambivalence. Kate had guessed that even without an obvious other physical presence in the cave most of the other times she had regained consciousness, someone had to be guarding her. Someone had to be watching, cowardly from the shadows, waiting until the drowsiness once again overtook her. She could vaguely remember waking once before and hearing the same voice; the shock at the pitch and fact her captor was female. She smiled at this thought, despite herself. Kate always had gotten on better with the boys. Even as a toddler she joined in the tag games over doll houses.

She was surprised she wasn't more afraid. It had been maybe thirty seconds since the other voice had spoken. Kate was somewhat unsure how to react. She assumed she had been left with clarity and rational through for a reason this time, but was shocked at how little she cared anymore to ask the questions she knew she was unlikely to get answers to. All she wanted was to see Jack even just once more. Tell him all the secrets she had hidden for so long. Tell him she was sorry for running off that day. Tell him how she felt. She could feel her body aching for strength; the energy even to form questions, words, lacking. Her tongue felt huge, like a heavy dry weight in her mouth; she could not recall taking water, or any food, for as long as she had been here. She walked around in circles in her own head; there was too much she needed to know and too much she didn't understand. Kate was used to being in control, of every detail of her life; new license plates, new hair colour, new state. Now she could barely organise her own thoughts, had no idea how long she had been tied and held; she wanted to fight against the weakness and disorder, but knew not where to begin.

"Get up." The voice demanded. She was still right above Kate. Kate opened her mouth to protest, the bonds and ropes which bound her; but then after long seconds, realised, that was what was different. Her hands and feel were still in the same positions, but no longer detained there. It felt like she had forgotten how to move. It felt so, so long since she had had control of her own physical being.

Kate gingerly, almost afraid of trickery, lifted her hands down; her fingers, which had been numb for days for want of blood, still lacking proper feeling. Her hands were swollen; long coarse cuts and lesions encircled her wrists, weeping and bleeding, unable to heal without a proper blood supply or less humid environment. Her arms fell to her sides, the sensation of muscle exertion so lost and unfamiliar; her once toned biceps showing the first signs of wastage. Hesitantly pushing herself to a sitting position, Kate drew her legs up to her chest, could feel the dull septic ache of infection from the cuts in her feet. And pressure sores, all along her spine and down the shadows of her shoulder blades; pressure sores that throbbed with foreign movement. Her world swayed with the action, sharp red spots that danced before her eyes and wouldn't seem to clear. What was already so black seemed to grow ever more intense and infinite; and then all those questions she had seemed to push forward at once, and that image of Jack covered in sand, and the memory of her father walking from her bedside, and her voice lost in the tube down her throat… Kate tipped forward, falling to an oblivion, and the reflex action of putting her hands out to stop the fall, just never kicked in.

It was other hands that caught her. Not the hands she wanted, not hands that held her soft and secure, but ones that pinched at her skin, deliberately coarse and careless. "You think I'm gonna fall for that one, bitch?" The cry cut into Kate's conscious and dragged her back to the surface. "You ain't fooling me. You think you're a right clever little bitch, don't you? You think he'd be with you if you gave him the choice of coming back to me?" The hands threw Kate back to the platform. "I don't know what you told him so he hasn't come to find me now you're gone, but we're going to find him."

Kate's mind somersaulted, tripped up, tried to make sense of this information. She was desperately trying not to scream at herself; it took the longest time for her decimated mind to focus on even the simplest word, and process it, and try to fit the pieces all together. A jigsaw she was rapidly losing patience with.

"Who are you speaking about?" She managed, her voice barely a hoarse whisper.

Kate saw the shadow above her move, turn away, a soft sigh mixed with a chuckle escaping her captor's lips. "Don't act dumb, Kate. We both know you're not dumb." The voice moved, but Kate couldn't follow its progress, her mind reeling with confusion. "You stole him from me. You've brainwashed him, or something, into staying with you; you don't call him his real name and, hell, now you've even gotten him to kiss you." There was silence for a second, a slight rush of air, a storm brewing in the limited, dead space.

And then her lips were right beside Kate's ear, and she could feel the hiss of saliva, smell the rancid odour of uncaring breath, and the threat that dripped like blood from the words spoken.

"He's not Jack. He's Aidan. And he's mine. And I'm going to save him."

A cold steely ring, the butt of a gun pressed to the side of Kate's head, and her breath catching with the solid finality of the object. 

And the scream that left her lips.

_She looked so peaceful, so fragile… a mere child, a china doll, white skin and lips still so full of colour; plum, a rich satiny pink, like a prom dress she might have one day worn, or a sunset. Lips too young to have grown thin and splintered. Lips too young to have kissed in anything other than familial affection. Lips that would never meet a lover's in ecstasy. Lips that would never kiss again._

Her eyes were closed; Jack's own hand had stroked, trembling, over them, as his voice spoke the time of her death, that minute that changed so many lives inexorably, forever. He could remember the warmth still in her, clinging in falsity; knew how the chill of lost life would gradually filter into her as all her homeostatic temperature monitoring systems became null and defunct, and shut down along with everything else. How when her parents came to see her, these fragile people waiting outside as he checked she was here and looking as much as possible like the daughter they still held so alive in their heads; how the first thing they would notice was the pallor of her skin, the stillness of her chest, but more than anything the cold. The ice in her as they held her hand and stroked her cheek. They'd ask for another blanket, irrational and desperate minds forgetting that no amount of blankets could warm her again. Forgetting she was gone; that she would no longer grow or laugh or complain about getting up in the morning, never grow to become anything less than perfect, or challenge authority, or stay out past curfew. They'd forget to speak of her in the past tense. They'd gradually, tragically and with each passing day, begin to realise that asking for blankets, feeding and watering her…just parenting and protecting her; these things they had been doing for as long as either cared to remember, were no longer needed. No longer valid. All those years of protection, of early nights and ABC's and limited junk food and no soda at breakfast, had come down to a fast car and a mangle of internal injuries, a crushed and splintered spine that even Jack couldn't fix. And neither he, nor they, would ever forgive themselves, for letting her down, and letting her go. For not saving her, for not fixing her, those things Jack had promised when he shouldn't have; and those promises he had broken.

Her hair hung in dark, non-growing tendrils around her face; compounding the ivory white of her skin, the purity of the fresh hospital sheets; those ones with red blemishes gone and replaced with false peace. And Jack knew; knew that for as long as he lived, he would never forget that moment, of opening the door to two parents who loved this little girl more than life itself; this little girl who had no life left in her. Their sobs which echoed like damning curses down the corridors and up the stairwells and striking into his heart. And he couldn't understand; even with every practical piece of knowledge he held, of the human body and its finite limitations; how he hadn't been able to save her, hadn't been able to stop the bleeding or control the endless damage within her. Find each tiny fragment of bone and somehow wire them all together again; restart her heart, stop her brain from swelling, transfuse unit after unit of blood into her. But none of it was possible and none of it was done. There were too many pieces to put the jigsaw together in time, and too many pieces missing for it to ever make sense again. They were both only human, after all; her little body that had too much to repair alone, and he, who could only do so much.

She was seven, and her bangs fell before her face, and her mother fell to her knees. And Jack whispered condolences, his eyes never leaving that tiny immobile face; rushed to the restroom next door, and threw up as tears streamed down his face.

It was the first time he realised, the first time he saw; not everyone can be saved.

But he had to save Kate. There was no reason for him to return to camp without her; no reason for him to go anywhere, do anything, anymore… it was like the stars had left his sky, every ray and twinkle of hope, bar one; the snatch of fabric grasped in his left hand, and the thick weighty clump of metal in his right. Jack picked his way through thick vegetation that lay like a barrier to the cave system; he had stashed his rucksack and tarp in a dimple in the ground beneath a large flat rock, took with him only the necessities of a couple of bandages and his powerful little LED torch. And the gun, each bullet slid perfectly into position, each moving freely and easily and ready to fire. Jack had once thought he'd never willingly carry a gun. But then he'd also once believed he'd never kill, even to relieve the suffering of someone who'd wanted to die. That he could save anyone, no matter how dire the situation.

He could still the memory of that tiny little girl as he reached the first tunnel into the labyrinth of caves; how her body had been too small for the hospital gown, or the gurney. How thinking about it now, with those dots of freckles and hazelnut hair, she could have been Kate eighteen or twenty years previous. Jack had been over the whole thing, from when he first heard of her as needing emergency surgery, to donning his scrubs, to that first cut with the scalpel, a million times afterwards; lying in bed at night, on early morning jogs, even whilst shaving. It had seemed ridiculous, to be cutting her again, with all the blood that was already oozing from every surface. But, he kept telling himself; that little girl wasn't Kate. Kate was someone else; somewhere close, he could feel it, the draw of her like a magnet which attracted his own.

The cavernous system seemed to be mainly under the ground; he could see the humps of different caves but the actual route in sloped downwards and out of Jack's line of sight. Instead of being above ground like back at camp, the hollowing was a catacomb, hidden; and he quickly realised how ideal a spot it was for holding someone captive. A passer-by could easily miss the narrow entrance. Kate, his Kate… was she here? Was she near, within shouting distance, would she hear him? He was suddenly terrified. This was it. She was here, but exactly where and in what kind of state… there were too many ideas suddenly crashing, burning within Jack's head, her image mixing with bloodied and battered patients on his operating table, and compounding his fears. What if he was too late? What if she was unconscious, or hurt, or worse? Jack exhaled slowly, tried to decelerate the fears that were escalating through him. _You'll see her again,_ he told himself over and over. _You'll see her soon, and then you can save her and fix her and tell her exactly how much she means to you._ He counted to five, slowly and deliberately, fighting not against fear for himself but fears for her.

And then the scream came.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10 - Follow You Heart**  
_9/11/5_

_"What day is it  
And in what month  
This clock never seemed so alive  
I can't keep up  
And I can't back down  
I've been losing so much time"_

The sound of her own terror brought Kate to; released her from the ambivalence she had been weighted down by, drowned in. It felt as if the weakness, the growing lack of hope and fading memories; they had sucked her under, made her believe there was no daylight left to be seen. And she had let herself disappear under the surface, let the cool water like mercury from a thermometer envelope her and hide her away; stopped herself from daring to look back at shore for fear that Jack would once more not be there to save her. She felt so, endlessly, weak; not just physically but mentally, the lack of light and timeline and disorientation that took over her, dragged her deeper. The endless waking and never knowing night from day, dusk from dawn; heaven from hell.

But then Kate screamed without thinking, screamed in pure unadulterated fear of the anonymous shaft of metal against her temple, the thought of life suddenly ending; losing out on growing as a person, knowing herself, trusting herself, finding Jack again and revealing all of her broken self to him. And it brought her back to life, power like electricity surging her legs into forceful kicking through the currents which threatened to drag her further out to sea. Gulping for air as she broke the surface, treading water and feeling some kind of hidden strength for the first time in what felt like a long, long time. Oh, there was still weakness; even turning her head or concentrating on her captor's words, caused Kate's mind to whirl and freeze and fragment, her muscles crying out with lack of basic necessary elements to cause contraction. But she pushed through it, dragged herself past barriers which would have made so many fall down and give up; and broke the surface.

Kate's reverie, her new lease of life, was short lived; shattered as the butt of that lifeless chunk of weapon, that solid powerful gun, smashed into her forehead. The shock of the impact took her breath away, the sheer force of the collision between virgin white bone and soft ruptured skin and metal. But then she was almost glad for the pain; so acute a sting that rapidly radiated to her whole face, skimmed down to the base of her skull, made her gag with the intensity of it. Warm foreign blood, freed from superficial veins and capillaries, bubbled and poured from a deep gash; curved around her eye and down the sharp angle of cheekbone, matting in her hair, so intense a red even in the gloomy light of the cave. Kate gingerly put her hand to the wound, could feel the hot liquid slicking over and coating her fingertips. She winced, but in truth had willingly taken far worse punishment whilst on the run; and that pain, that sharp shrapnel ache that spread like a road map along the network of nerves in her skin and deep tissue, it rang an alarm bell in her head, a need to wake and start to think more clearly, start to ask those million questions. To escape. To live.

The voice was sneering, harsh, cold, when it came. There was an intensity evocative of the low threatening tone Kate's stepfather had used when her mother was out of earshot, a reminder to keep the noise down, to keep out of sight, or she imagined to ideally just Smurf off altogether. "Don't. Do. That." The female voice spelled it out, patronising. "You start screaming again, and there'll be more than just a little bit of blood for you to worry about, got it?"

Kate nodded numbly. She could taste the metallic tang of iron-rich blood in her mouth, like a stain in the back of her throat, and there was no saliva to wash it away. 

"Right." The gun was back to her forehead, deliberately pressing into the shards of torn skin. "Now you're gonna take us both to him, and then you're gonna know what real pain feels like."

Kate's mind raced. The woman could be speaking only of Jack, but the rest… his 'real name', how he was hers, none of it made any sense. She desperately tried to stall as an arm fell to her wrist and long fingers, slender and feminine, slid around bone and flesh.

"I need water." She stated. It was true. Her tongue was sandpaper, sharp and pasty in her mouth, clinging to her palate.

A water bottle was thrust into her hands, and Kate took greedy gulps of the precious liquid, fingers gripping the resource tightly for fear of it being snatched away. She wished Jack were there to disapprove, knew she herself had heard him say a thousand times that after dehydration it was important to take only a few small sips an hour to gradually replenish her bodily fluids; but Kate knew not when she might be allowed to drink again, and so she finished the bottle. The effect was instantaneous. Even before the last trickle wound its way down to her stomach, the cool liquid seemed a life force within her suddenly; the lethargy lifted, the confusion seemed to fade by huge degrees. Her body eagerly absorbed every last drop of fluid and brought her back to life.

"Who are you?" She asked, her voice still croaky and thin. There was a rush of déjà vu, and Kate wondered, how many times had she asked that same question before, in a window of clarity; and received what? The truth, a lie, silence? Her memory had failed to retain the reply, only the feeling of having already asked. Kate allowed her eyes to wander up to that figure above and in front of her; managed to make out shapes and colours for the first time since whenever her arrival in the cave had been. The woman had straggly, dark blonde hair; pulled back into a rough bun, greasy strands darting before her eyes. She was bulkier than Kate; taller maybe and with broader shoulders, a heavier built frame. She held the gun in her right hand, steady as a rock; and those eyes, those eyes that glared black in the false night… they spun wildly, pupils pools of oil, deep chasms. Kate could see, she had been beautiful once, not even long ago; but now an ugliness clung to her, the ugliness which caused cruelty and madness in desperation for whoever 'he' was, or whatever she believed Kate to have done.

Faith snorted. Her fingers were still wound fast around Kate's pale forearm, a vice. "I'm the one who you stole him from. I'm the one who gets to decide exactly what should happen to you once we find him and he comes back to me."

"Jack?" Kate murmured, hardly daring to for fear of the reaction. She wanted desperately to somehow get the gun from the other woman, but saw not how she could manage it; she hadn't even tried standing yet, let alone attacking. And her captor seemed terrifyingly on edge, nervy, walking a thin wire between sanity and delusion and usually falling down on the wrong side. A sudden movement and that finger that hovered over the trigger, it could all too easily lurch downward, instinctively; and then all would be shattered and lost, and escape would be all too distant a dream compared to mere survival.

_"Barely surviving has become my purpose  
'Cause I'm so used to living to living underneath the surface  
If I could just see you  
Everything would be alright  
If I could see you  
This darkness would turn to light"_

"That's NOT his name!" Anger filled her words, and Faith's grip upon the handle of the gun tightened. She let go of Kate's arm, and both hands found the grip of the gun; she stood mere inches from her hostage, the gun aimed squarely at Kate's already bloody forehead.

Kate backed up, scrambling to reverse in fear; her mind screaming at her to run, run as she always had; but knowing that was the one action with a certain, fatal, outcome. "Woah, calm down, I'm s-sorry, I didn't mean to…" The words came thick and fast and full of fright.

"Aidan! His name's Aidan! Not Jack, he's not yours to call anything, he's mine..." Faith's arms remained stretched in front of her, unsteady, uncertain. "All this, me holding you here, it's all _your_ fault… He was in the middle of the plane when it broke up, and I was in the tail. I thought-" She paused, swallowed. "-Thought that he was dead, I gave up on him, and it's all your fault…" She seemed to trail off, her eyes wondering and flitting with the images playing on loop in her mind. The gun remained fixed in place. "You wouldn't let him go, but he came back to me, came back and found me… and the others wouldn't believe me, they said they couldn't see him but I knew better, I knew they were lying…"

Kate tried to process this jumble of high pitched information, this bombardment of hallucinogenic thoughts and ideas; and all the while feared for her own safety, the gun hovering like a promise, the not knowing where she was or how far her decimated body could run if necessary. She mentally summarised the information. She knew she had to goad more, in order to hear the full story, in order to try and talk herself out of this hell hole.

"So if you were sitting in the tail, why wasn't Aidan with you?"

"He went to get some napkins." Faith replied, on edge. Answering questions, listening to anything this bitch had to say, hadn't been part of the plan. But it felt good to tell someone, anyone, her story; felt good to speak Aidan's name, the feel of it on her tongue, the torch of it in the air.

"So when the plane broke up, was he in a seat? Was he strapped in?" Kate inched carefully towards the information she wanted.

Faith's eyes turned to stone. "You don't have any right to ask that." Her tone was low, an edge of sadness mixed with what was obviously a threat. Kate remained silent, hoping for more. Seconds passed and the tension in the cave seemed to grow and compound, circle in the air. Kate knew the answer but knew it needed to be spoken.

"Look… it's just, if he wasn't secured in a seat, he wouldn't have had a chan-"

"SHUT UP!" Faith interjected. The gun waved violently between them, that tiny black hole that held so much power, where death would leave from to enter her; it never left Kate's vision. "Just shut up, you don't know, Aidan loves me, he wouldn't ever leave me!" Faith's voice bounced and echoed from the cave walls, words haunting words, the endless collision of raised shouts and denied and buried grief spilling from her too easily, and appearing as anger, upset, irrational actions. "Aidan _isn't_ dead. You're just trying to trick me like all the others… I know, you little bitch, I know he's with you and you're stopping him from coming back to me…" Faith took a step towards Kate, pressing the butt of the gun into rings of cartilage of her trachea; forcing her chin up, constricting her already weakened airway. Kate closed her eyes, felt that circle of hand-warmed metal burning into slack skin, swallowed against its impingement upon her airway. This was it. This might the last thing she ever said.

"But why would I take Aidan, if he is alive? Look… Jack is Jack, _not_ Aidan… I'm sorry but I think you need to realise that if Aidan isn't with us, or with you, and he wasn't belted in, then…"

"STOP LYING!" The scream came. Kate's eyes whipped open, wide and manic with fright. "You, and everyone back at camp, none of them believe me, but I'VE SEEN HIM! Aidan's alive, he's ALIVE, and _we're_ going to get him." Faith kept the gun shoved roughly against Kate's neck as she jerked her to her feet, the weaker woman instantly swaying and growing glassy eyed.

As soon as she found herself vertical, Kate's world began to tip upside down, and round, and through; where once there had only been only black and grey, colour formed and darted like fireworks. Her head grew first cold, and then hot, uncomfortably hot… she felt first her feet give out, then her legs, and then an endless path upwards as her body protested against the sudden movement with no energy to fuel it. Kate felt her knees collapse and buckle, and over and over in her mind a song lyric played by a band she couldn't recall, and hot flashes of colour spread and compounded, a fire that wouldn't cease.

The blackness began to descend over her; and then there were footsteps, rapid footfalls, heavy breathing, maybe a mirage and maybe, just maybe, not a mirage at all.

"_How long have I been in this storm  
So overwhelmed by the ocean  
Water's getting harder to tread  
With these waves crashing over my head  
If I could just see you  
Everything would be alright  
If I could see you  
This darkness will turn to light"_

The darkness was interrupted by sporadic dashes of light, bright white flashes like a photograph being taken as the sharp light from Jack's LED torch bounced off the labyrinth walls, jerking around with his frantic running. So many times he nearly fell, trying urgently to find his way to the rising voices before they stopped, or something happened. His mind was flooded with so many conflicting voices; one flooded with relief that with Kate's frantic scream a few minutes back, he knew she was close, and able to speak, and just _alive_; another that cowered in fear at the quiet that had followed, that sickening sudden silence. There was one voice, the one he tried so so hard to ignore, the one that whispered his worst fears; what if he had reached her just minutes too late, what if a half hour earlier out of camp one morning would have made all the difference, what if she was lying in pain, waiting for him so she could say goodbye… what if, what if. Jack buried the voice under the others, those ones that spoke of positive outcomes and happy endings; and he followed the voices and his heart, his heart that led him to hers like a soul finding its mate.

Jack knew how capable Kate was, remembered her confidence with holding and handling a gun when they had trapped Ethan; recalled so vividly the striking image of her wet through, soaking clothes outlining her body, wet strands of hair and her delicate hand holding that metallic lump of power. How fundamentally wrong and right it had looked all at once; how as much as he admired Kate's confidence, loved her independence and self reliance, Jack also wanted to bundle her into his arms, just look after her and know her and have her allow him to love her. There was so much hurt in her eyes sometimes, so much suffering she secreted away; things he knew it might take years or lifetimes to let go of. Years or lifetimes he'd willingly give her, if she'd have him, if only he could save her.

Jack's footfalls slowed as the voice grew nearer, louder; his heart was smashing so frequently into his chest wall, colliding and collapsing and filling again with rich blood, and beginning again. The adrenaline shot round his body, holding hands with fear, infusing him with drive and fuel to keep going. The labyrinth tunnels were long and narrow, and many times he'd stumbled upon a cave without seeing it until he was in front of him; and he knew, that couldn't happen this time, for Kate might be in any of these, and he could never put her in any danger. Daylight barely reached this far into the catacombs, occasionally filtering through a thinner piece of ground above him; so Jack kept on his little torch but left it pointed at the ground. Gently, silently, he removed the nine millimetre from the waistband of his scruffy jeans, cocked the safety, felt the firm cool metal like a barrier in his hand. He heard Kate's voice again, muffled but definitively Kate; his heart pounding even faster, leaping up to his throat, the fear and hope and dread filling him in great handfuls.

And then a scream, not Kate but angry and directed at her, doubtlessly; and then that silence that was worse than any screaming or any noise, any noise apart from a gun shot.

Jack forgot stealth, forgot counting to five, forgot to conceal his torch light or take tentative steps as he neared the opening from where the voices were coming. He lurched towards Kate, this girl who six weeks ago he didn't even know existed; and now, was the most important thing in his world, more important than his own safety or continuing existence. He would willingly dissolve into ashes and lost memories, if it meant she would be okay, if she would be free; and his heart cried out for hers and then, suddenly, found it.

He staggered into the cave, nearly tripping over his own emotion and multiplying fears. The LED caught snapshots of the scene before him.

A face he didn't know, caught in something like shock and relief and the remnants of grief.

A makeshift platform, ropes brown with dried blood, a water bottle he recognised as Kate's.

A small collection of things in the corner; a blanket, another water bottle, Kate's boots, a faded envelope.

Kate. A gun aimed at her decimated form. Jack's heart thudded, screaming, wanting to leap out his chest cavity. She was bundled on the ground, collapsed, her already petite form having lost so much muscle and weight. Her eyes were looking into his but disbelief was flooding them, and he knew, she'd have seen this scene a million times before, in all those days since she was taken; and he wanted to cry and fall to her, hold her and apologise over and over, for not finding her sooner.

She was tiny, a tiny bundle of ripped clothing and wasting limbs and bedraggled hair; of cuts and bruises, thick weeping lesions around her wrists, a deep oozing gash above her right eye. He winced, and it was all Jack could do to not break down in tears. His Kate, so very broken… a mere rag doll on the ground. And needing him, so desperately.

"Aidan." Came a shocked voice.

Dry lips cracked open. "Jack…"

"Katie." Jack whispered, through the lump that filled his throat and the love that filled his every pore.

His heart had found hers once again; and now he just needed to save her.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11 - Raincloud**  
_17/11/5_

_"A faded vision frozen in my mind  
Of melting memories and tears in her eyes_

But she's a raincloud and she's washing over me  
Makes it hard to see the light  
She's a raincloud, it can't be good for me,  
So why does she make me come alive?"

There was nothing, then. Nothing but silence, and three minds racing with the fear this was all nothing but a dream. Jack, scared this wasn't really Kate. Kate, scared Jack was nothing but her dilapidated mind tricking her. And Faith… Faith finding a dream coming true and then with each glance at this man she had been watching for weeks, finding that dream fall from her grasp; the flashes of light it caught on the descent that would never end. Eyes meeting, mere glimmers, pupils shrinking against the sheer white light of Jack's torch… and Kate's laboured breathing, the air that wouldn't quite come, her mind screaming at muscles and vocal cords to do something, anything, and them point blank refusing. No need to be strong anymore, they told her. Jack's here now. But she wanted to show him… show him she was still _Kate_, still capable, still fine on her own. But for once, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, she needed someone. She needed him. And she wanted to.

"Jack…" Her voice was barely a whisper. She was reaching for him with arms that failed her. She was reaching for him, holding out fingers and hands and arms for him to carry her home; but it was all only in her mind, like a falling dream, and each time she realised her arms were in truth still at her side, Kate grew more and more frustrated. At herself, at the muscles that had carried her so far on the run for so long that now failed to manage the smallest of gestures.

Jack opened her mouth to reassure her, trying to rapidly assess the situation at the same time… the path of his gun still firmly trained on the stranger who stood over Kate. This woman who he had assumed would be a man, this broken corpse of a human who he had built up to be someone so huge, so powerful and cruel and unfeeling; her eyes that hadn't left him since he barrelled into the cave, eyes like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Eyes that twitched in shock. Someone long ago shattered, long ago lost… someone so fragile. But someone who had a gun, mere millimetres from Kate's head, a finger that trembled hesitantly on a trigger. And all the sympathy Jack had; all the sympathy and empathy he as a doctor was immediately filled with; deserted him, for Kate, _his Katie_, was perhaps seconds from death… and certainly battered and bruised, black and blue where tanned healthy skin once lay. A shadow of the power of strength and determination he knew.

The stranger spoke. Screamed. "That's not JACK! That's AIDAN!" Her voice echoed in the cave, shot up to the ceiling and bellowed down again like smoke. The two names mixed and collided until the individual words were indistinguishable, and that gun, that gun Jack wanted to rip from her hands, flailed wildly in unsteady hands. Kate flinched, but not the immediate and conscious reaction she should have had. "Aidan…" The voice was calmer now, almost too calm. Jack's mind raced with trying to figure out what was going on. "… You came back to me, I knew you would, I told her but she wouldn't believe me…"

The words came out too fast, too loud. This wasn't how she wanted it to be. She wanted their reunion to be perfect, on a warm day on the beach, eyes squinting in the sun, a hand up to shield irises so she could see him clearly. He'd walk slowly towards her, footprints just in the waterline, each drinking in the long lost sight of the other. Not this. Not this face she wasn't sure she recognised, and her mind that tried to convince itself, and he looking confused, and that gun. That gun that stayed trained on her, when it was that _bitch_ he should be angry and threatening at.

"Aidan?" Faith asked in a small voice. She wanted him to break into a grin. She wanted him to drop his gun, pick her up, whirl her around like just after he proposed. Fish and chips on Manly beach, and a diamond ring and the sunset. And her face that had said it all.

"Who's Aidan?" Jack replied calmly.

Those words, the exact ones Faith's mother had used the first time she mentioned this wonderful man… Aidan, who had done nothing but help her carry grocery bags up to her third floor apartment upon running into her in front of the broken elevator. Who had done nothing more than smile before Faith knew she was going to fall in love with him. But to hear the words spoken again, and it be this man before her who spoke them, this man she knew was her husband; a chill ran down Faith's spine, radiating through her nerves, speeding up her heart until it thudded into her chest wall and filled her ears with a dull, knowing throb.

Jack saw her eyes widen, the step she took back in a physical motion against the shock permeating through her. A smile seemed to play across her lips for a second, and his mind rattled with bewilderment and a total lack of understanding. _Aidan?_ There was no-one on the island by that name, or as far as Jack knew. Vague bells rang in his head, had there been an Aidan on the flight manifest? He didn't know, and was rapidly caring less. He wanted to run back to normality. He wanted to pick Kate up, and rewind time until she had just kissed him, and tell her not to go for a walk. He wanted to understand the world again.

The smile on Faith's lips spread, until she was laughing out loud, a cackle that bounced off the cave walls. "Oh my god!" She cried. "She's Smurfing brainwashed you as well? She's got you forgetting your own name?" She stepped forward again, pressed the gun into Kate's temple. Kate groaned, barely conscious. "What the flying Smurf have you done to my husband, huh?" The butt of the gun dug into a wound that still blazed with blood, and Faith's frightened, crazed voice came out as a growl. "What the Smurf have you done?"

Jack reacted automatically. It was as if his brain bypassed conscious thought and just immediately directed nerves to move muscles that would achieve something, anything to get this woman away from Kate, a rag doll who lay scattered on the floor, merely whimpering. His booted foot came up to her knee cap, smashing into the clothed bone and knocking Faith off balance. Her tight grip on the gun remained as she reeled backwards; Jack brought his foot up again, landing squarely in the soft flesh of her stomach. Her body lost balance, and limbs and trunk crashed simultaneously into the opposite wall of the cave. To Faith, time seemed to slow and stand still; the look on Aidan's face as the rubber sole of his boot locked with her abdomen, the fierce burning from his eyes at the thought of Kate being put in danger. The shock of his impact against her, how the pain never seemed to start; how there was already too much pain flooding her with the mere idea that he would choose Kate over his wife, brainwashed oe There was no time for Jack to count to five. There was no time to panic, or cry, or run kicking and screaming to the corner of the cave and rip the life from this person who fifteen minutes ago he hadn't known existed, and could now so easily be the person who took Kate's life. There was no time to do anything but rush to her side.

"Katie." He said firmly. He tried to break through the haze that surrounded her. Her hands were resting on the wound. Jack covered them with his own, and pressed firmly. "I need you to press, Kate. I need you to press as hard as you can." Jack ripped an emergency bandage from his pocket, struggling with the cellophane wrapping as his hands shook uncontrollably. Kate's eyes were glazed and lost, staring at him with something like disbelief.

"Jack." She croaked. "Jack…"

"Sssh, ssh, I'm here…" He quickly made a thick pad from the bandage and placed the material under Kate's hands, and pressed them down again. Already the ivory of the dressing was becoming saturated with thick, viscous crimson. Jack swallowed.

"Jack… I've been waiting for you to come, so I can tell you." Kate coughed, dissolving into a fit of jerky splutters and breath that caught.

"Yeah?" Jack was removing his shirt, ripping down the buttons. He tried desperately to keep her talking.

"I needed to tell you. About how I'm not…" The splutters came again, more severe this time. "…How I thought I wasn't good enough for you, and how I'm probably still not, but you make me believe I might be one day, Jack." She paused, mesmerised momentarily by his calmness. Jack tore a long thick strip from his shirt, and another, and another. Her words, her quiet accepting of events, the blood that flooded from her leg… they broke his heart. "I didn't kill Tom. But he was in the car because of me, and they shot him because he was with me… and Tom's baby, Jack, he had a baby…"

"Ssshh." He tried to calm her rising voice, absorbing the information she was imparting to him but needing to concentrate on stopping the flow on blood. Jack grabbed two of the strips of fabric, lined them up together; as gently as possible, unbuttoned Kate's jeans and slipped them over her hips, exposing the skin underneath. Skin that should have been delicate white, but instead was slick with the fluid that should never have seen the outside; fluid Jack desperately wanted to gather in his hands, push back into the artery, sew her up again.

"Jack." Kate whimpered, a moment of clarity seeping into her as she gazed at her damaged leg. "Jack… I'm scared…"

"Katie…" He gathered up the shards of his shirt, lifted her fragile leg and slipped them underneath. As quickly and tenderly as possibly, Jack tied the tourniquet above the point of entry, where the blood oozed from; pulled as tight as possible and double knotted the fabric. He knew the bullet was still within the flesh; there was no exit wound at the back of Kate's thigh. And then Jack stopped moving, and moved his bloodied hands to the sides of Kate's face.

"Listen to me." He murmured. He locked his eyes on hers, both relaying each other's racing fears. "I'm going to take you back to camp. Back home. And I'm going to fix you. You're going to be fine, Kate." A tear trickled from her eye, and Jack leaned in to kiss the droplet as it meandered down her cheek. The touch of his lips… that gentle brush, it was all Kate needed to make the tears come fuller, thicker and faster and no longer anything to do with the bullet in her leg; just seeing him, just having him there when it was all she had wanted and needed for seemingly endless amounts of time. Ever since she had first woken in this lost, foreign place.

"Thank you." It came out as a sob, solid and happy and terrified all at once. There was so much more she wanted to say, so much she needed to tell him. She stared into his eyes, for long moments, trying desperately to let him know all her weak, shattered body had no energy to say.

"I know." He whispered, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

There was a groan from the corner. Jack grabbed the torch and his gun. She was a heap in the corner, a skinny mass of bones and heaving breaths.

"I'm so sorry…" Faith barely recognised her own voice, so full of sorrow and dreams that could no longer ever come true now she knew Aidan was gone. They would never buy their first house together, or sit and wait for pink lines to appear on a pregnancy test, or hold hands and listen proudly to a parent's evening report for maths or English. There was only this island, and never being able to properly say goodbye, and waiting to return to a life she wouldn't recognise. "I thought… I thought you were Aidan, I didn't mean to shoot, I would never have shot…"

"Who's Aidan?" Jack repeated.

"Aidan is…" Faith stopped herself. "Was… my husband. You… you just look exactly like him, I didn't know, I couldn't believe he was dead…" She was no longer speaking to Jack. She was staring into the blackness and at Kate's shuddering form. "I'm sorry…"

She reached up, handed Jack the small worn envelope that sat along with her other things. "Here." And then she was silent, her knuckles white with grip on the clump of metal in her hand. There were no more words, only memories that played in loop in her head. And Aidan, smiling down at her, and Faith knew what she needed to do.

Jack pocketed the scrap of paper without question. He turned from the corner, from this woman he could never forgive; back to his Kate, pale and gently moaning, and knew she needed to be at the caves. Now. And he needed to stop his hands from shaking, for he would allow himself no rest until not only was her life saved, but every tiny bruise and cut and scrape had been seen to. He gathered her up in his arms, softly supporting that leg which still leaked what looked like so much blood, so much that Jack's vest immediately felt wet and warm with foreign fluid.

He walked quickly from the caves, and never looked back; those two specks that now moved as one, his heart that had found her still pounding in his chest. He didn't want to think about how it was at least an hour back to camp, and for every second of that she was in such danger. He remembered all those figures in his medical school text books, of how thirty percent of total blood volume can be lost before transfusion is essential, how blood loss always looks more than it actually is, about how he could do the very best job he was able to as an experienced surgeon, and some patients still won't make it. And Jack thought about first meeting Kate, the courage she had shown in stitching him up, the devastation in her eyes when she admitted she had killed someone, the look of fledgling trust as she kissed him those few long days ago. About how she made him come alive in a way no-one else ever had. 

How there was no way he was letting her go yet. Or ever.

Her head lolled from side to side as Jack exited the caves, lifting Kate up and over the lip first and then climbing out himself. Her knelt down to pick her up again.

"Jack…" Her voice was nothing, and at first he thought he was imagining it. Her skin was so, so pale in the moonlight. Jack prayed with everything he had that the torch held out until they reached camp.

"Katie?" He whispered.

"Jack… I don't think I can hold on…." Her eyes were closed.

"Ssshh, of course you can, you hold on for me, okay? Kate?" His heart was thundering. _Don't leave me, _he wanted to cry.

"Okay. Jack… I need you to know, I lo-"

"Don't say it." He interrupted her quickly, aching at having her back, and not daring to expect those words, and dying inside. "Don't say that, not now. Tell me once you're better. You're going to get better, so you can tell me then."

"Okay." Kate whispered, her mind hazing over again. And she let herself be bundled up again, let his strong arms carry where he could no longer run to herself. She sunk into him, and trusted him beyond anyone else she had ever allowed into her life. She knew; he would save her. Because neither were ready to let the other go.

_"A faded vision frozen in my mind  
Of melting memories and tears in her eyes_

But she's a raincloud and she's washing over me   
Makes it hard to see the light  
She's a raincloud, it can't be good for me,  
So why does she make me come alive?"

Only Jack heard it. That noise he knew was coming.

The gunshot sounded from the caves, the bullet that would have ripped up through her head, her hands that would have been shaking as she took her own life. And, he hoped, found her husband waiting for her on the other side.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12 - As Long As It Takes**  
_21/11/5_

_The road never ends. Time's such a funny thing; how it slows down just as we're waiting for something, and speeds up as soon as that thing comes, and we cling on to every second 'cause before long it'll be over. And all the while we're waiting for something, and then the next thing, and the next; all the while forgetting that time is time, and each second in reality lasts as long as a second lasts, and no hoping or cleaving will alter its duration. There is much we can change… how to spend each second, and who with, and where. But not the second itself._

You've learnt that. You learnt that long ago, decades before most will; if they ever do at all. The road never ends, and that LCD clock on the dashboard that flashes 12.02 always does, for it cares no longer for time. And you never bother to check the real time, for you have nothing to wait for… no college lectures, no blind dates, no meetings. Just another thousand k's, another daydream of Tom that can never come true, another sleepless night despite your eyes which refused to stay awake while you were trying to drive. You know that time cannot be reversed, however much you wish it to be… you know, for this is the only thing you glance at your watch for, that it has been exactly three years, six days, four hours and twenty-six minutes since you discharged yourself from the hospital. Since you got a cab home, and packed meagre belongings in a backpack; jeans and shirts and photos you can't bring yourself to look at. Since you took every cent from your savings account, bought a beat up old Civic from a private dealer who wouldn't remember your face if asked; and left scraps of words for your father, words that could never say what they needed to, and drove off into the night.

You're starting to forget what it felt like to be truly alive. To be loved. You know, from those fragments of lives that reach you via letters every few months; you know your father loves you, misses you, wants you home. You can hear the grief in his words; grief at the loss of the child he thought he had, and though he knows you're not a bad a person, the dreams he had for you are fading and dying as you yourself are. His most basic instinct, to just protect and look after you and shield you from all those things which threaten… this he cannot fulfil, can only sit by the phone and check the mailbox for those scraps you offer him when you can. Those words you give as reassurance, that you are fine and it's better this way and whatever other lies you can come up with. You realise how the roles have reversed. It's you_ protecting _him_, now, from those things you'll never burden him with, from those things you can't bear for him to hear._

And so you drive, further and closer and further again… these roads tributaries from the chase, like peripheral arteries which carry you from your heart and those you love and all you wish could be. Today is like any other day. Time crawls and races by, and you are down to your last few dollars again. A song plays on the radio, and try as you might you cannot place it; and though the lyrics are sad, it takes you back to some time long, long ago, when you were truly happy.

…"I feel just like I'm sinking  
And I claw for solid ground  
Pulled down by the undertow  
Never thought I could feel so low  
In all darkness, I feel like letting go"

The night had descended, full force; and it felt so very wrong, that full moon like a shimmering pearl in the raven sky, and the stars which shone and played dot to dot… the beauty and the peace, and Jack stumbling through foliage, through jungle, through self doubt… through the terror of her unconscious, limp form.

Her femoral artery had, at least for now, stopped its seemingly relentless gushing of thick red blood. Kate's jeans, that thick sturdy denim, were soaked; literally saturated with her blood, as was Jack's once white vest. He shuddered, looking down at it, how it glowed in the moonshine and that deep, foreign crimson slowly dried to rust and sickening brown. The beam from the torch gradually wept away, until it was nothing more than an insipid glow, and Jack jogged blindly along tracks he knew he had to know; had to, because losing his way was not an option. There was too much blood, and not enough time to play with. She needed fluids, and maybe blood, and his hands to reach into her to retrieve the bullet; and then endless stitches, antibiotics, rest… every time Jack thought of how much needed to be done, it sent waves of fear through him. What if he forgot something, what if she had been through too much, what if…

What if he lost her.

And he knew. He couldn't lose her. They hadn't found each other, in all the world, twice now in all the paths they could have followed; for their paths to separate now. He hadn't saved all those other lives only to lose this one, this singular entity, this fragile frame in his arms, this stubborn, beautiful, precious _Kate_. This love.

Jack was glad of one thing; the absolute mess he had made wandering through on his outward route. An idiot could have followed his path, the macheted bushes, heavy running footprints even the rain hadn't washed away. Jack moved by the moonlight, and sent silent thanks for the clear night. He dreaded to think what would have happened had his torch faded with no moon to guide him. He hung on to Kate, his arms wrapped firmly around her, shifting position every half mile or so to maintain his speed. Her head lolled over his shoulder, across his arm, down his back; whichever way he held her, it felt careless. He wanted to lay her down on a feather bed, wrap her in fresh flannel sheets and in his arms, wish away all the pain and blood. He wanted to tuck her in and let her sleep for a thousand years, just as long as she needed until life reached her again.

Every so often Jack would stop, lower Kate down, check the tourniquet and her vital signs. Usually she woke as he did this, or less woke and more regained some form of consciousness; her eyes would met his and that was all he needed to keep ploughing on. Her pulse was fast, racing, and so so weak; from shock caused by lack of blood, that blood that lay outside her and on him. But she was alive, and as long as she was alive Jack ran on once again, towards voices and firelight and saving Kate.

And then suddenly she wasn't.

_The road stretches out in front of you, a silver ribbon to a horizon, and as ever you wonder what it will bring when so much has been promised. Three years, six days, four hours and twenty-seven minutes. That minute that took a minute to pass, and no more and no less; how many more, you ponder. How many more 'til you figure out, where you've been driving to all this time. And if you'll ever be able to stop._

The sun is drifting into the horizon, to the exact point you are aiming at yourself. You drive into the light, wondering who will move first, like in a game of Chicken; and it is so bright, canary yellow, blinding you. Your eyes seem to close, and try as you might you can't manage to open them for more than seconds at a time. The clock on the dashboard has sprung to life again, except the minutes are passing too quickly, flying by, and your eyes sink like the sun. And it is so bright, and those little black and white numbers spin on an axle, and you lean back from the wheel, blinded.

He's sitting beside you. You turn expecting Tom, but it's Jack… and you consciously think, But I don't know Jack yet._ You realise it's all a dream. Or a nightmare. The car spins off the road, and Jack sits and smiles at you… and just as that yellow light absorbs you, he whispers._

Don't leave me, Katie…

Later Jack would think about it, long after the cuts and bruises had been seen to and some kind of peace had descended once again. Later, long after his weary body had once again refused to sleep in order to watch over Kate, when he was sitting and staring mesmerised at the pale glow of her skin in the firelight; he'd go back to that moment, that singular essence in time as he felt for her pulse and found none, and no breath either. He'd torture himself with it. He'd remember how his heart had pounded out of his chest, as if trying to leap into hers to give her life; and how for just a second all his knowledge, medical and all else, had left his mind. How everything he knew; his whole mind and every part of him, was filled with one singular notion. _Don't leave me, Katie… _

He sprung to action. There was a lonely second, between the realisation and the reality setting in; not a count to five or even time for his nerves to register the fear consuming him, but just a second as he lay her down, that his whole world went blank. Everything but a single thought of her, everything just leapt away. And then, though he couldn't remember what he was doing, or what the ratios were, or even his own name; somehow Jack began CPR, checking both pulse and respiration and finding neither… and then two breaths, fifteen chest compressions, two breaths, fifteen chest compressions.

The dry air. The soft starlight, contradicting the trauma and loss of life below. The feel of bone and organs somewhere below his fingertips, as he crushed them down to palpate her heart. The mud that smeared over blood. The feel of her lips, cool and lifeless where, what felt so long ago now, he had once been embraced with warmth and wanting and fledgling trust.

All those things, those things he would remember later. Important to remember, that edge if peace the curved into so much chaos and fear… an important memory to retain. And how through it all, all he wanted was to hear something other than his own greedy, living breath.

Later still, Kate would listen as he recounted the series of events back to her; all those things she had had no knowledge of, as she lay there dead and Jack pumped life back into her, and covered her lips with his own over and over to give up his own oxygen to her. How his tears had fallen on to her cheeks and he was terrified, beyond terrified, and how he never thought he'd tell her that. And Kate would sit, listening and crying and trying to believe that someone could care about her as much as Jack did.

It felt like hours. Jack would never know how long it had been, knew only two and fifteen, two and fifteen; only the ache in his arms and breathlessness that wheezed through him, and that none of that mattered if only it was keeping her alive. He started to pray, bargaining with a god he had never turned to before this last week. Let her live, and he'd give up coffee, go to church every Sunday, devote the rest of his life to helping orphans in Africa, _anything_. Just make her breathe, just make her breathe.

Jack knew he couldn't keep up the rhythm much longer. He would continue until he literally collapsed, but he could feel his heart racing wildly with exertion, and the lactic acid which burned in his muscles; and he kept going. The rain started, that rain that flooded down suddenly and drenched everything within seconds of beginning. The water filled up the shallow lip that Kate lay in; fell into her jeans and washed blood from them to the ground until Jack knelt in mud reddened with Kate's life force. Torrents streamed down his face, mixed with helpless tears; soaked her hair, clung like icicles to her eyelashes, kissed her lips. Jack pummelled her chest through sopping orange fabric, leaned to give life to wet lips, and wanted to scream with frustration and the hopelessness that flooded him.

Kate gasped.

She gasped. She drew a heaving breath, sucking in the air unnaturally, scrambling for it. Her eyes were wide, disorientated, manic. And another breath, and another, hyperventilating. Jack felt the relief that flooded him, his heart screeching into his chest, and his voice he didn't recognise.

"Kate… Oh-Oh my god, you're alive…" He cupped her cheeks with shaking hands, not to be affectionate but to look at her pupils. She was so cold. "Sshh, calm down…" Jack could see how despite breathing, and her heart beating, she was still miles short of being able to speak or maintain consciousness for any length of time. She desperately, desperately needed fluids to try and overcome the hypovolaemic shock, to try and replenish the sheer lack of liquid within her to drive her heart. For just a second her eyes met his, and he made promises with nothing more than a gaze.

Her eyes fluttered closed again, but ragged breaths remained. Jack stroked wet strands of hair away from that face, that face he knew so well despite all the bruises and pallor and nasty gash on the forehead.

"I'm taking you home." He whispered. "I'm taking you home, Katie, and I'm gonna do everything you need me to do. For as long as it takes, and then I'm going to look after you, forever." Jack promised. He bundled her up against him, stood despite the fatigue which threatened. The clouds which had brought rain cleared, and the moonlight resumed, and some kind of peace had been restored. She was alive again.

It was maybe fifteen minutes back to camp, fifteen long minutes full of worry, but time that would take as long as it took, like all time. Jack took out the whistle Sawyer had gotten from one the life vests, placed it to his dry lips; blew three times, shrill and prolonged and hopeful that someone back at camp might hear. Know he had found her, and know to get water and towels and Sun. And start praying.

He ran and whistled, ran and whistled, her frame bouncing against his, the mud underfoot, and Jack knew; he'd save her, no matter how long it took. He knew, because of that sound which cut through the night air and filled him with renewed belief and hope.

Kate's breath next to his.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13 - Still**  
_11-12/05_

The sound of the whistle cut through the night; a warning and a cry for help and the piercing of peace. Jack stumbled on, puncturing the calm air with the shrill noise, and his heaving breath, and the trample and crushing of the foliage around him. He was so desperate to hear voices, or see fire, or just any sign of human life and camp and all the things he knew should be here somewhere. He needed someone to tell him, to reassure him, instead of he trying to convince himself over and over. 

Someone to tell him she'd be okay.

It was funny, how much once a new reality emerges, the old one seems unbelievable, unimaginable. Like the world turning from summer to winter, and New York going from sunshine days to seeing his breath in the air, and an ice rink erected in Central Park. How once winter had hit, it seemed unreal that only weeks previous he could have walked around in cargo shorts and short sleeved T-shirts and craved the smooth thrill of vanilla ice cream slipping down his throat. How, bundled in gloves and scarf and a great overcoat and trying to keep grip on the icy pavement, so recently he had been tearing off layers and crawling with sweat on his morning run. Unimaginable. And vice versa in summer, the heat that dripped from the sun like oil, and his mind unable to think of snow nor Christmas, nor all things distant from the moment.

And now… now, that ordered life in New York, and the single life, and more cash in the bank than he had time to spend; it felt like a film, or someone else's life that he had been faking at. To be able to use truly sterile equipment, to give the gold standard drug or treatment; so foreign a concept, as Jack scrambled over tree roots, and held tight on to Kate's limp form, and tried desperately to recall what he had left in his meagre makeshift meds cabinet. A few miniatures to sterilise the wound, needle and thread to stitch the ragged ends of artery and muscle and skin back together, and a small sharp knife to cut to find and remove the bullet. _God_, he shuddered at the thought of cutting into her. The idea of a weapon slicing into that delicate skin… the skin he was supposed to protect and hold and stroke lovingly, not delve sharp blades into and promote further damage. And then remove shrapnel, sew and mend endless layers of tissue… and begin to pray.

Hard to imagine, but equally hard to discard, now; the new reality of events which had taken over. Jack could no longer picture a world where his next concern was not preparing himself for surgery; couldn't imagine Kate just well and being her usual stubborn, hardy self. But more than anything, and the reality he feared and dreaded the most; he couldn't imagine his life without her in it. Couldn't imagine one day going back to his apartment alone, cooking French toast for one, waking in the morning without the hidden thrill of knowing she would be somewhere close. That maybe he could see her today, maybe they would have one of those conversations he convinced himself meant nothing more than just good friends. Maybe he'd see her smile, and know that one day that smile would be too much for him and he'd let himself give in. Maybe there were just too many maybes. But a world without any maybes… a world too certain and too organised, morning surgery, lunch, afternoon surgery or golf… a day without her smile and all those secrets he longed to know and all the tiny details of her life, that Jack needed to find out. Unimaginable.

He couldn't imagine waking up, and knowing she would never be there again.

And so Jack pushed on, a lone figure making trails in this island with all its buried secrets and hidden woes, mingling with his own. Pushed past bushes and fruit trees and his own terror, that voice whispering inside him that threatened the worse, locked and lost in battle against the one that spoke of all the positive clinical facts, and how Kate was strong and wouldn't let go. He stroked her hair from her face, gazed deep into unseeing eyes, and felt the soft hush of breath against his cheek, a weak skip of a pulse somewhere beneath flaccid skin. He whispered all those things he wished he'd told her weeks ago, just in case he didn't get the chance to speak them again. He ran and whistled and whispered sweet nothings, and hoped they somehow wished the pain and trauma away; and led her to somewhere where there was peace… peace, and no pain, but still _life._

He pictured Kate doing the most mundane of things… things Jack had taken for granted back in civilisation, that somehow he couldn't entirely equate with her, this girl he knew only outside and only living to survive. Filling a car with gas; driving a car even; somehow unimaginable, somehow foreign. He still saw her in the same clothes she wore now, with tousled hair and sun kissed freckles. Answering a phone; for some reason, he could see the smile she would crack, how she would wedge the receiver between ear and shoulder. Writing something down as she spoke, or stirring a pot, or kneeling beside a child and praising a picture… a little girl with dark curls, and green eyes. And Jack could see himself, sliding the screen door, pressing a kiss to both sets of chocolate curls, scooping the toddler up in his arms, and catching Kate's eye…

And then suddenly there was light, a shout, flickering firelight from torches; and he could stop piercing the sheltered night with sharp trills. Jack stumbled towards them, that image of a family life he would in all likelihood never know, fading; his heart a roar of thunder against his rib cage. The room faded, with all that foreign electricity, and the smell of lemon grass from the stove… his briefcase went, and the smart clothes, and Kate herself faded into the black. But that child remained in his mind, that tiny entity of them both… a child he knew didn't exist. But as Jack fell towards light, and reality, and some vague hope his heart began to cling to; that child wrapped tiny arms around his neck, and in his wildest dreams whispered that Mommy was going to be okay.

And he was terrified. Terrified she would be wrong, terrified of his own failings… terrified that if he screwed this up, that child might never become a living, breathing thing. So very scared to enter this new reality of stopping the running, and truly trying to engage his brain to do that which he knew best; and equally scared to remain where he was.

His first thought, as he lay her down, was how this was the first time in as long as he could remember that he had seen her still. Kate wasn't _still_. It was a foreign a concept as Jack being lazy, or Sawyer getting emotional. Kate moved. Even when she was sleeping, she moved. Jack could remember going to check on her a few times over the first few nights on the island, and how she never looked at peace. Kate twisted and turned her way through life, and dreams, and sleep. Her brow had been knotted in things he could neither see nor hear; her breath, catching in invisible fear. Kate moved, and ran, and put herself in any situation that involved going somewhere, doing something, anything to save herself from having time to think. Time to think, and time to remember things he knew she'd rather forget.

But she was stry inch of damage back together again.

His hands didn't stop shaking, but Jack somehow found a vein, hooked up the IV line, passed the bag to Hurley to hold up and taped the needle to Kate's skin. She was so ghostly pale.

"No problem." His eyes snapped to Sawyer's, but the usual animosity had vanished from them both. There was nothing but shared wishes and shreds of hope. And Jack knew why he needed Sawyer there; because if there was anyone who'd fight for Kate's life half as much as Jack would, it was Sawyer.

It was too quiet, Jack realised. There was no beep of a monitor or calm voice of an assisting surgeon to guide him blinded through a procedure. There was no Howie Day playing over to help him relax as he worked. There was nothing to distract him as he untied the saturated tourniquet, those strips of shirt such a deep scarlet… nothing to reassure him as that slow trickle of blood started once again, like he knew it would. But, worst of all, and much worse than that… nothing and no-one to let him know it was okay, as he took that knife that wasn't good enough for her, in that makeshift theatre when she deserved the best, and through the tears which threatened, slid the blade down into that pure white skin.

Red, and white, and the glint of the blade in the daylight that threatened.

And Kate. Still.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14 - Exposure**  
_12-13/12/5_

Jack tried to imagine himself as the bullet as he worked. Tried to imagine the flight through that unique tunnel of air, spinning and colliding with particles of oxygen and nitrogen as they leapt out of his path… and then finding that smooth skin, delving through epidermis and subcutaneous fat and then deep through muscle fibres and the lining of the femoral artery. Imagined cutting though that warm flow of oxygen-rich blood, and freeing it to foreign territory; and then slowing, slowing, finding a place to rest, and stopping somewhere deep and hidden. And watching as destruction unfolded, gathering pace and continuing his work as platelets flooded to the wound, and found it not to be the minor scratch they were hoping for. But something much, much worse… something beyond clotting and something far beyond what the body could heal itself.

He had sedated Kate as best as possible, instructing Hurley to crush up some sleeping pills into a small amount of water and forming a paste that could be rubbed into her mouth and hopefully find it's way through glands and blood vessels to capillaries to her brain. How he wished there was a clinical white room, a cold metal bed, fresh white sheets, an anally neat row of sterile tools laid perpendicular to the edge of a tray. A monitor to tell him her blood pressure, oxygen saturation, heart rate, respiratory rate… hell, a light to work by even. At this stage anything would be better than a small blunt knife and his own less than sterile hands, and fingers that felt clumsy as they fumbled where fingers shouldn't have been; sensing nothing but the textured mesh of muscle, the thick pulse of blood though the artery he had just reconstructed. It had taken so, so long. Each time he'd sewn the ragged edges of tissue back together, and then released the tourniquet… there would be a split second where no blood would leak, but then a single pulse would flutter along the vessel, and slowly but surely a trickle of red would appear. Cotton thread was not designed to hold as sutures did.

Sawyer watched Jack's every move throughout the hours that passed. Watched him the way a younger brother observes the older as he grows… with grudging respect, and something like maturity appearing. He at one point asked how Kate was, and was met with silence. He didn't ask again. He knew, suddenly and irrevocably, that it was not his place to ask. He had the right to know, but somehow not to ask… and so he stood and watched, silent with eyes that followed another's expert hands. He had too many stolen demons to start asking an angel's questions now. And so he turned to the biggest demon of them all, to distract himself from the image of a angel, battered and broken before him. An angel and a murderer, but somehow an angel all the same.

Sawyer could still remember those first few minutes afterwards. After the gunshots and stillness and silence, and in those last few moments where he allowed himself to believe that what he knew had just happened, somehow hadn't. A dream maybe. A nightmare. Those last few moments as his life flipped over and altered forever, as his father's blood spilled like water from his head, and soaked through a child's blanket and sheets and that space still outlined in his son's form, still warm from his little frame. A child suddenly ripped from childhood, now. And then he had crawled out, already feeling the chill of change, the still whisper of a clock which cannot turn backwards. He ignored his father's body, crawled past those boots he feared… and padded down the hall to the front door, to that mess if limbs and hair he would see for the rest of his life whenever he closed his eyes. He took his mother's arm, and ignoring the blood, ignoring the way her eyes never moved, ignoring the lack of familiar hug… wrapped himself up in that maternal hold one last time. A final time to breathe her scent, and that warmth that she held like no other… a final time to say sorry for not protecting her.

Sawyer blinked and shook his head, clearing the image. Clearing the sound of his own eight year old sobs, those which rose in pitch like a kettle boiling and gradually filled the air, the room, the house… and rose again with the knowledge that it mattered not how loud they became, for there was no-one left to tell him otherwise.

The edge of pain… there's the edge and then the fall, and this fall that seems only to progress.

I open my mouth to speak, to scream, to cry out… and when no sound comes, it's okay because at the same time you somehow appear opposite me. You say nothing, just smile the smile that says everything's be okay. I keep falling but you catch my hands, somehow slowing the descent, somehow numbing the pain through nothing but wanting to.

I want to say to you how much has changed. I want to tell you about my life before you, the bit in between those pieces you know. The middle of the puzzle when you have the outline all mapped out. I want to tell you about Tom, and about living off nothing but rice crackers and the kilometres behind me for weeks on end. I want to stand before you and peel back layers of myself until only those blackened, cancerous memories remain… I want to expose everything that is true, everything I have been false about. Exposure of everything I've worked so very hard to bury away forever.

**  
_"And this very moment  
Of timid and fragile honesty  
Is precious and rare  
And fleeting"_**

And it's then I look up, and the car is dangling like a keychain from the cliff top… and I remember driving as always, always before Australia and the flight and the island. And that clock which ran forwards and you sitting beside me when I don't know you yet. The sun streams into the valley as the fall continues, and the air particles part to let me through… and you smile at me from afar, a distant promise.

**  
_"And all you feel now  
Is the scarlet in the day  
And even if it's real  
You can't stay"_**

The scarlet sun is burning. The air is torched, a slick of heat and the tired groan of a weary sky. The light blinds me again, and the fall begins to slow… I try to open my eyes but the sun, that white spear, burns. I know none of this is real, but right now I can't remember what _is_ real either… there are too many memories which could be nothing more than fantasies, or could mean everything. And then suddenly I am still, and the fall has stopped, and the pain grows like a thing alive.

My eyes flicker open and shut, and I can see you mouth something to me… but somewhere in the darknesses, somewhere in the blinks, I lose the meaning of your frantic words.

"Jack."

He didn't reply. He knew what she was going to say.

"Jack."

She's persistent. But words wouldn't change a thing. Words never could.

"She's w…"

"I know."

He didn't mean it to come out like it did. He didn't mean for the words to fire off like a gun. But then he meant to find the bullet before now, and somehow neither had happened.

Sun flinched. He wanted to apologise, but he also wanted to find that shred of silver, and one wouldn't happen until the other did. He had no energy for anything but saving a life. Kate's life.

She mewed from the makeshift bed. It was a moan and a sob collided… Sawyer caught Jack's eye and automatically held down Kate's shoulders, pressing his own weight against flesh which must not move.

Jack felt nauseous. She couldn't wake up now… his hands were still deep in her thigh, delicately excavating until metal was found. The pain had to hold her off from waking. Her brain, surely, would spare her the agony.

How is it that as soon as you stop looking for something, that's when you find it? His eyes were on Kate's flickering lids, that delicate film of tissue over emerald pools, willing them to stay closed and ignorant. It was the first time in maybe an hour that Jack had not been fully concentrating on the feel of soft viscera and muscle beneath his fingertips… and it was the first time the texture changed, to a bluntened shard of metal casing.

His fingers snapped around it. His eyes shot a look at Sawyer, and the other man realised the discovery. He nodded to Jack, something between understanding and encouragement. Sun stood and nervously, yet stoically, handed Jack tweezers procured from a make up set.

His fingers worked like forceps, separating the muscle blocking passage to the shred of silver… the sterilised tweezers, gently lowered and manoeuvred around deep veins and tough muscle fibre. Hands close to shaking, Jack found the shrapnel once more, closed those flimsy metal clamps around it. And so so delicately, edged it from the its resting place.

He watched Kate's face as she drifted in and out of coma, the dreams she must be having as her body tried to explain away the pain her rational self wanted to wake to, to put a stop to. Sun took the tweezers and crushed metal bullet from Jack, handed him the needle and thread without needing to be asked. Hurley watched with dumbfounded disbelief as Jack threaded the needle and, stitch by stitch, meshed muscle and nerve and blood vessel back together and replaced everything where it should be. His hands worked in methodical calmness, matching the serene look on his face, that mask that never betrayed.

Inside he was terrified. 

Inside he was telling himself cotton thread wouldn't be good enough, wouldn't hold, would need to be taken out again. Inside he was still remembering the pool of blood and rainwater he knelt in as Kate's chest refused to rise and fall independently. Inside, because it was the safest option and the most likely one, he was telling himself she was still far too close to the edge to dare to dance.

Jack reached the skin, those flaps of flesh all that was left to sew together.

She suddenly gasped, and Kate's whole body jerked violently to the trauma suffered, as she started to fully come to and the full intensity of pain flooded her.

I stop falling. I strain to hear your words as the light takes over again, and drags me somewhere new. I wonder if you'll be coming, too. I strain to hear your shouts, and through the haze of pain and mist that swirls, I hear you.

"I love you, Katie…"

No-one's called me Katie in such a long time. I smile at how it sounds in your voice, slightly unnatural, slightly gravely, but somehow…

Right. Katie sounds right when you say it. Maybe even more right than when he used to say it...

The light takes over, and it is all I can think of. The light and the pain, and these layers I peel back to let you in. Exposure of all my truths and all my black and blue. To let you love me.

They worked together, and it was déjà vu for each. She slipped in and out of consciousness, and each time she regained it she looked at him, that look that spoke volumes despite delirium. The look that said she understood, and it was okay, and continue. He made each stitch as quickly and painlessly as possible, and tried to remind himself of the pain she must have been in. He could not imagine it. Couldn't imagine the botched repairs that would lie exposed to the outside world if it weren't for this thick sheath of skin.

He wondered if she'd ever walk again, swim again, climb again. Jack didn't have all the answers. The needle hit the skin again and again, pierced the tough tissue, and Kate's face screwed up further in fits of dreams. Pea green stitches; standard black had long ago been used up. He thought back to that first day, and the courage that emanated as she took needle and thread in hand, and namelessly made suture after suture. He thought how as much as he was physically exposed, Kate, in doing something so unnatural, so brave, had exposed so much more than he.

Jack tied the final stitch, and the relief in the caves was evident. Hurley's mop of hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. Sun looked dazed with effort, while Sawyer let go of Kate's shoulders and wandered off around the clearing, silent with respect and relief. He ran shaking hands through dirty blonde hair, and felt the exhaustion drain into him.

Kate mewed again, louder and with more clarity. Her eyes flickered open, for longer now… and with that flash of green Jack feared he might never see again, he let himself go. He dropped tools to a hollowed coconut, and shaking with exhaustion and happiness, collapsed to his knees beside Kate's form as she slowly began the long journey of coming too fully. Sawyer and Hurley looked on, smiling but embarrassed, as the tears wracked through Jack… as he took Kate's hand in his, kissed it through wet sobs, smoothed hair from her forehead and pressed his lips, full of relief and emotion, to her forehead.

"Katie…" He sobbed, the words spilling from quivering lips. "You're okay, I've got you now, I've got you…" His arms encircled her decimated form, that skin and bones, that shattered remains.

He peeled back layers, as he stood and cried with emotion more raw than he knew he possessed… threw off those layers of aloofness and coldness, and all the barriers he had allowed himself to build up over the years.

Kate's eyes flickered open, and a singular thought reached her. The pain hadn't hit yet, and for that single millisecond as a single tear carved its way into history down her cheek, her only thought was of Jack.

Layer by layer and tear by tear, the exposure of the other began.

"**_Walk along here  
Feel you move  
Somewhere in front of me  
I can't place you  
With these eyes  
For they doubt I can see_**

How could someone so beautiful  
Feel something for me  
Hold me and love me and touch me again  
And show me why I believe"


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15 - Don't Let Me Go**  
_9-10/1/6_

_The water's cool, the slight shiver of the sun through it, a current. It is like diving into purity, clear unadulterated purity, washing away all the sins and the blood and the memories that haunt me, from near and far. I dive into the icy liquid, and for those thirty, forty seconds that I can hold my breath; there is no other world than this one underwater, my body a torpedo, a fish, a thing belonging here. Under the surface, encased in nothing more than the present cleansing moment._

Then the tightness begins; so slight at first, an imagining, a dream. One by one each cell calls out for oxygen, a want then a need then a desperation. I float calmly to the surface, to the world I don't to want to be in, slowly unwrapping myself from the cocoon of coolness. I break the surface violently, shattering the rippling water, dragging breath from the air.

And it's then I know this is nothing but a dream. The water is clear, azure; the trees green, your eyes that infinite enveloping velvet brown. But I tread water and stare at my real form, at the caves, balancing awkwardly on wreckage and blankets and loaded with immobility, frustration, the threat of infection. I watch as I wake, disorientated and groggy, as you patiently feed me meagre amounts of water and crushed up fruit and fish. I watch for minutes or hours; days maybe. I stir and call out names you won't know. You press a cool compress to my forehead, make me swallow antibiotics in my groggy bouts of consciousness, whisper to me all the time. You're telling jokes. I smile at the thought of it; it has taken all this to make you truly smile.

You eat beside me, change beside me, read beside me. You kiss my forehead whenever you leave for even a second. You make sure I am kept fresh and clean and fed and hydrated. You sleep beside me at night. I've wanted to curl up in your arms, sleep in your protective hold, for so long…

I open my mouth to call to you, to tell you all these things, to tell you how I thought I'd fallen in love with you already but you're making me fall all over again, everyday.

But no sound comes, because this isn't really me… the real me half sedated, half unconscious, beside you. I wonder who I am, then, or what part of me… I sit in the sun, and plead with myself to wake up properly.

The real me, the part of me that lies unmoving; it's always your name I call out first.

Jack surveyed the three little pills in the coconut shell. Two 25mg of amoxicillin, and one fairly strong sedative he had added to the concoction for the past two days while the antibiotics did their work. He couldn't stand to think of Kate in pain. Couldn't bear the thought of her waking again like just after the surgery… that precious split second of relief at seeing the other safe and well, before the sheer sickness and slick of cold had ran through her as the pain flooded in. Kate, who had been through maybe more than he would ever know, suffered endless scrapes and knocks that anyone else, male or female, would have been immediately to him complaining about; Kate, who he had witnessed second by second as her face crumpled into twisted torment as the throb from the wreckage of the gunshot wound began.

And he couldn't stand it. Kate showing fear, or pain, or grief, without any shame or mask appearing; as much as he had witnessed it previously, he knew it was like he doing the same. So rare, and only when things grew too massive to instinctively suppress; so when she had woken, and literally clamped her hands to the blankets with the ferocity of the uninhibited insult her body had taken, Jack had screamed for the medicine cabinet. Morphine intramuscularly, and two of those little white pills; and somehow through her anguish, Kate had found his eyes, trust exchanged in tears, sedatives swallowed. 

He had held her quaking form as the chemicals took effect… whispered his heart's deepest secrets and fears, as slowly but surely her iron grip on his forearm loosened, and peace took her mind someplace else while her body slowly healed.

He hesitated now, smooth stone in hand ready to crush up the pills to dissolve into water. Jack placed the makeshift mortar and pestle to the side, stroked a stray hair from her face, watched as eyes screwed up in untold dreams. He wanted to dive in there with her, let her take his hand and lead him through fragmented realities. He wanted to sit with her someplace no-one else could find, and exchange life stories. 

The stitches looked good; at least, as good as lime green stitches could look in what was going to be a fairly uneven heal. By some miracle, the amoxicillin was working; what two days ago had been an ugly, bloody gash, a crevice virtually inviting infection, was slowly becoming a angry red line, angry but not infected. Flaps of skin were welding together, the leg was not solid with internal bleeding, and according to tendon taps he had done to Kate's ankle, she still had good motor function down the leg. Jack knew it was time. He had ached for it and dreaded it all at once; time to let her wake up. The longer she was stationary after such a bloody procedure, the greater the chance of developing a blood clot embolus. If that travelled to her lungs, or heart, or brain…. A shiver ran down Jack's spine. There would be nothing he could do. A silent killer. And though the pain she might experience would be bad, the morphine all gone and used up; it was far better than the thought of swathing her fragile body in cloth, lowering her to the imperfect ground and whispering to the wind the things he meant to tell her all along.

Jack plucked the third pill from the shell, returning it to the bottle. He sat alongside Kate's silent form as her grinded up the two antibiotics into a fine powder… watched her chest rise and fall, up to the heavens and then back down to earth. Sawyer wandered past, pretending to be heading down a trail towards the garden so he could check on how she was doing. Shuffling past, he stole a quick glance, looked back again. Jack waited until the other man was a few steps away before he called out.

"She'll wake up later."

Sawyer stopped, turned on the spot. Jack could still feel the debt he felt like he owed this man, this man who he had somehow never found common ground with… until Kate went missing. Until he dragged Jack up, made him see sense, organised search parties in a way neither of them would have imagined Sawyer was capable of.

Sawyer cleared his throat, somehow caught off guard. He watched as even in conversation, Jack turned almost imperceptibly to check on Kate. It was automatic, unconscious; a heart checking on its reason for beating.

"I'll be sure to pop by tomorrow then. If the good doctor thinks she'll be up for visitors of course." Jack read between the lines; he'd gotten used to doing this with Sawyer, now. That was Sawyer talk for respecting boundaries and leaving Jack to have Kate to himself tonight; and checking it was okay with Jack as the man who loved Kate, not her doctor, that it was okay to come by tomorrow to say hey.

Jack smiled, nodded. "She'll be pleased to see you." Sawyer could see the relief etched like stone in the other man's features. He nodded, took a last glance at the sleeping figure, and turned once more to the path.

Jack called after him, the thing neither could say in conversation.

"Thanks, Sawyer." _For helping me find her, for caring about her, for dragging your tired body through the jungle after mine long after the sun had gone down. For knowing I couldn't give up, for not being able to either._

Sawyer's pace slowed. He wanted to turn around, to look Jack in the eye when he said this. He wanted to say how scared he had been holding her shoulders, the blood pouring from her, the fear spilling from him into silent pockets of air as Jack had calmly made incisions and repairs. But somehow, he couldn't make himself turn. Couldn't let the guard down that much. Sawyer stopped walking but kept facing the other way.

"You too." _For finding her. For saving her._

He swallowed, shoved hands into pockets. Kept walking.

The usual suspects filtered in throughout the day; Charlie and Claire with Aaron, an awkward but caring Hurley, Rose offering help or just to sit with Kate while Jack had a rest. Sun, of course, with her delicate smiles and clean blankets, fresh clothes and a wash cloth; the only time Jack left Kate's side, while Sun gently gave her a quick sponge bath and changed her into a fresh top. Jack pottered around with supplies while Sun did this, respecting Kate's privacy; he grinned at her chattering away to Kate, who was at best extremely groggy, completely incoherent and in a lot of pain. Useless facts about the garden, baby Aaron, whispered comments about Jack when she knew he was listening. It was exactly what Kate needed, conscious or not. Some semblance of peace, of normality.

The sun was hitting the peaks as Jack wandered over to the waterfall, took a handful of the cleansing liquid, ran it over his face and basked in the sheer icy coolness of it. It felt like a life force, trickling down his throat, an elixir. It was a matter of minutes or hours maybe now, until she woke; how he longed to hear her voice, see those deep pools of eyes open without glaze or disorientation. How he longed to wrap her frail form in his own, close their eyes against the day, feel the curl of her fingertips as their digits intertwined. How he longed to lie with her whispering those things he swore he'd never tell another; hearing all her anecdotes and memories until they melded into one another so much to be indistinguishable as two separate bodies.

"Jack!" Sun's clipped call broke his reverie, delved into his fragmented reality and pulled the first piece out. "I think she's waking up."

"Jack…" He heard his name again as he sprinted the few metres to where Sun stood over Kate's writhing form. But this time in a different voice. Her voice.

"Kate…" He fell automatically beside her, felt her pulse, stroked her hair with the frantic kind of love that flooded him as her eyes flitted, opened, closed, sparkled. "Sshhh, I'm here, I'm here…"

Sun stepped back, gave Jack a smile as she went to busy herself with things already done and things that could wait, just as Jack had been doing seconds earlier. "Let me know if you need anything." She murmured quietly.

His face. God, how she loved his face. It hovered over her like a dream come true… like reaching from another reality, Kate lifted a shaking hand up, pressed clammy fingers against his stubble, over eyebrows, down scars from the plane crash. Her thumb traced a single tear from its origin, etching its path into his cheek, coming to rest on his bottom lip. Quivering, Jack pressed a small kiss to her fingertip, watching her eyes as she seemed to absorb him, suck in the image of him. For long seconds each held the other's eyes, basking in being able to sink in colour they thought long lost.

"Are you in pain?" Jack whispered, eyes flitting to her leg. Kate remembered, then, that horrific pain searing through her from the limb; Jack's face a picture of torment as he demanded pain killers. She shook her head.

"Not as much as before anyway…" Her voice cracked, her tongue thick and pasty in a mouth now so used to silence. Jack grabbed a bottle from the cave floor, sat behind her and propped Kate's head up against his abdomen with such delicacy. Gently he held the bottle to her lips, allowed a slow trickle of liquid to flow.

"Better?"

She nodded, swallowing the cool fluid. The haze was still clearing from the sedatives; gently, Kate reached to touch the fresh material bandage wrapped around her thigh. She could remember that cave, that woman, endless dreams of Jack and then finally him appearing, and then…

"Is that where she shot me?" Kate tilted her head back to met Jack's eyes. He nodded soberly. "And you carried me all the way back here?" Another nod.

A cry escaped her throat, and from his awkward position Jack wrapped her arms around her decimated form, encircling her shoulders. Kate, shaking with weakness, held on to him; felt the warmth all around her like a blanket against the world. The sobs taking over, she gripped Jack's arms with all she had; curled her upper body into a curve to fit within his, as he gently rocked back and forth and pressed kisses and his own tears into her hair.

"You're safe now. I've got you."

Kate sniffed, thought of the likely miles he had carried her bleeding and battered, to the hours of operating he would have put himself through, to the days she knew he had sat here beside her.

"Don't let me go."

It was much later when the two woke again; Kate first and as she shifted position, Jack stirred also. Sun had left a simple meal of fruit and fish in a large coconut bowl at the end of Kate's bed. Kate smiled at the flower, sitting in a small amount of water in an empty pill bottle beside the food. _A couple of candles,_ she thought, _and we'd have the makings of a first date._

"Are you okay?" Jack supported Kate's frame as he got up, stretched, her well being always his first concern. She winced as she moved her leg.

"Not exactly a hundred percent, but getting there." Kate met his eyes. There was so much to say. So many endless thank you's and questions and revelations and histories.

"Jack… I don't know how to thank-"

"Sshhh." He knelt before her, taking her hands, entwining fingertips. "You're here. You're alive. That's all I need." Jack reached up, brushing the beginnings of a scar on Kate's forehead. "You're all I need."

She looked down, gripping his hands, investigating all the tiny bumps and imperfections, welded into his skin from a life lived. She wanted to ask about each of them in turn, all the stories hidden and forgotten. "Jack, I want to tell you." Kate whispered, meeting his eyes again. "I want to tell you all about what happened. Before…" She looked around her, at the waterfall and caves and pieces of luggage dragged from the beach. "Before here."

Jack nodded. "I want to hear all about that, Katie…" He stopped, realised that despite calling her Katie a thousand times while she had been unconscious, he had never used the familiarity to her face.

Kate smiled. "Tom used to call me that." She didn't say who Tom was. She could see Jack placing the pieces of the puzzle together. "I heard you call me it, right before I blacked out… back there…" She shivered. "It sounds right when you say it, Jack. I feel like me again when you say it." She glanced down to their hands again, hesitating. "I haven't felt like me in a long, long time."

Jack grinned, leaned in, pressed a kiss to her hand. He could feel himself falling all over again Kate blushed, trying to remind herself she did deserve this, no matter how much she didn't believe it.

"I need you to try and stand for me, Kate." He broke the news gently.

Kate glanced from Jack, to her leg, and back again. "You're kidding, right?"

He gave a small smile. "'Fraid not. Gotta get you back on your feet as soon as possible, or else deep vein thrombosis can develop and…"

"The thing you get on planes?"

Jack nodded.

Kate looked about them wryly, the plane wreckage and mass of personal shrapnel each survivor had scattered around. "Anyone ever tells me about that being one of the main dangers of flying again…"

Jack grinned, filled with hope, pressed a sudden, fierce kiss to her forehead. She was back.

It took a good half hour of gentle manouevring, a lot of grimacing on both parts, until Kate was finally sitting on the edge of her makeshift platform. She looked up at Jack doubtfully, her injured leg dangling useless over the edge.

"You'll be fine."

"Hmm."

She grinned at him despite herself. Jack took a couple of small shuffles back, leaving just enough room so he could still grip Kate's hands and help her stand. "So…" Kate shifted, grimaced. "If I want you, I've got to come get you? Is that the deal?"

Jack grinned. "What can I say, I like to play hard to get."

Kate lowered her good left leg to the ground, the right one still dangling like a thing foreign to the rest of her body. Even standing was going to feel strange after what amounted to over a week of lying down, either at the cave or after the operation. She hopped up, biting her bottom lip in pain; gripped Jack's hands sharply as her right foot came into contact with the ground.

"Try putting weight on it." Jack encouraged.

Slowly, allowing the dizziness of becoming vertical to clear, Kate shifted more of her weight to the bandaged leg; lowered her whole foot to the ground and gently transferred her balance to over two lower limbs. All the while, Jack's hand gripped hers, a sure lifeline and crutch.

He watched her, the pain he knew she must be experiencing, the courage in her eyes. He watched her and almost choked with the pride and emotion filling him, the love that overwhelmed him as her face screwed up in determination. Slowly Jack let go, making sure Kate was steady. He stood ever so slightly off to one side, as she transferred the weight back to her left leg, extended her right, took a tiny step forward. A rapid hop and the weight was back on the left, then the right again…

"Kate."

"Mmm?" She murmured, lost in the motion of the jerky movement.

"What's your favourite colour?" The question he'd somehow tortured himself with in fantasy dreams where she'd been back. The question he'd realised early on that despite knowing this woman, despite loving her more than he'd realised he could love anyone; he somehow didn't know her at all.

Kate stopped, looked at him quizzically.

"Purple… Why?" She lost her footing, stumbled with her concentration elsewhere. Jack flew forward, caught her in his arms.

Jack smiled, gently held her in his arms, supported her weight and his own. "It's one less thing I don't know about you. While you were missing…" A lump rose in his throat even thinking of those few torturous days. "While you were missing, I thought a lot about how little we really know. Or how little we know about just normal things. Like how you take your coffee, or your middle name, or how many kids you want to have…"

Kate caught him off guard, curled in his arms, watching him speak about everything and nothing. "Milk no sugar. Don't have one… three, two girls and a boy."

And then suddenly her lips were suddenly on his, somehow different from their first kiss… still delicate but less so, her tongue probing its way into his mouth, tasting him. Gently she pulled on his bottom lip with her teeth, reached up and traced his closed eyelids with the pad of her thumb. Jack pulled her to him, careful of her leg, twirled that loose strand of hair in his fingers; cradled her like the most precious thing in the world. It was a kiss of need, a need to show the other how much they had missed, how much they loved, how much fear had flowed along nerves since their lips had first met. The terror of the first kiss also being the last.

It was Kate who eventually broke the contact, needing to say what was flooding her before all the distant fears and shattered self worth caught up with her again. "Jack…" She caught his eyes. He nodded for her to go on, eyes burning.

"Remember in the cave… right after I was shot…"

Oh, how he remembered. The noise, the torch beam, the terror and scarlet sheen of fresh blood. Jack squeezed Kate's hand, _yes_.

"I wanted to tell you… and you wouldn't let me. You said I had to tell you once I was better."

Jack grinned. The grin spread, grew, until he knew he'd never stop smiling again. "Because I knew you'd get better. You're too much of a fighter Kate."

Her smile matched his own.

"I…" Kate swallowed. She'd said these words to only one other person. And he was dead, because of her. Dead. She met Jack's eyes, those chocolate spheres she'd longed for for so long, had filled her dreams, day and night. She thought of Jack sitting beside her in the car in those fantasy realities, how she didn't know him yet but yet felt she had known him forever. She thought of him falling with her as she descended into pain… of her own relief, months ago now, as he walked from that cave in alive and unscathed, and how she had needed to hold him, just to feel he was real and whole and unhurt.

"I love you, Jack." Somehow the words flowed freely. She didn't trip on them, fall as she'd so expected. The heavens didn't cave in and whisk him away from her.

She looked at him through blurry eyes, felt the soft pads of his fingertips trace the contours of hr face.

A whisper came, that whisper she had heard so many times in her dreams and knew now was not just her imagination at all.

"I love you too, Katie."

The two moved together, tears mixing as they just held one another; thought how of all the places in all the world, each other was somehow here to fall in love with.

The two bodies melded, merged, until it was unclear when one person stopped and the other began.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16 - A Smile Can Mean So Much**  
_11/1/6_

The night crept over them, soft and silent as a shadow from behind. The rest of the survivors had come up from the beach, bringing bowls of fruit, Jin with handfuls of yellow snapper and carp; Sun poached the supple flesh in coconut milk and ladled out portions for each of the campers. It felt like old times, smiles and laughter, Kate managing to sit down in the rest of the circle… endless wishes to get well soon, how did she feel, how was the leg. Simple food and firelight, and stolen glances to Jack across the faces and darkness.

Sawyer, in typical fashion, turned up late; exchanged a nod with Jack, the mutual respect like a web between them. Sawyer wandered over to the patient, placed an awkward kiss on her cheek. Hesitating, he sat cross legged beside her; across the firelight Jack caught Kate's eye, the flames like a shard of gold across her iris. He gave her a smile, turned back to catch up with Michael; gave her the space he knew she'd always need.

"So you and the good doctor, huh?" She knew he'd have to ask. She knew he'd have to say it in that way, in that voice. Kate turned to Sawyer with a small smile.

"Guess you were right all along." She glanced at Jack's back across the smouldering timber, watched the slight breeze ripple through his shirt, smoothing over sculpted muscle toned from hours of chopping firewood. Through the heat emanating above scarlet flames, his outline shivered and blurred… Walt cracked a joke, and Jack shook with laugher, as if in slow motion. She felt overwhelmed at that moment; to be in the clearing with all these people, to be able to exchange familiarities with Sawyer… to be alive, when by all rights she should be long gone, suffocating under soil.

To fall in love with Jack all over again, time and again, for the most ridiculously small gestures. To watch him across the clearing and know that walking towards him, she'd sense his pull like a magnet, and he hers. To know that without ever seeing her, his arms would be waiting to cocoon her from the world.

To be loved.

"Freckles."

She blinked, turned to Sawyer. He shook his head, laughed out loud, pushed himself up with his feet alone.

"That's all I ever wanted, Freckles."

She looked at him quizzically.

"For you to stop looking at him like he's so much better than you."

Kate looked at Sawyer… really looked at him for the first time in a long time. She didn't know if she'd ever be able to explain what it was that clicked between them… something like looking into a mirror, gazing into the past. But it could never have clicked any further, not the instant fit that she had felt with Jack, delving that needle into his skin that first day and hearing the tears in his voice when her own refused to surface. Trouble was… she'd faced her biggest demon, her Mr. Sawyer, and had long ago forgotten him. That wasn't the crime she had lived to regret. Sawyer… Sawyer was still gripping so tight on to that piece of crumpled paper, that letter he couldn't rip up for fear of betraying his childhood self.

He turned to go, a smile that said something like sadness. "Hey…" Kate called after him. _I still need you,_ she wanted to whisper. _I still need you to wind me up and take the pss constantly._

"Freckles…" He joked. "Just 'cause you were kidnapped and starved and shot and nearly died, don't be thinking I'm gonna be coming at your every beck and call-" 

"Would you get rid of this for me?" Her scrap of crumpled paper. That face, that face she wanted to forget forever, that black and white etching of a life she hoped long lost.

He took the furrowed white square from delicate fingertips, twiddled it between his own calloused pads. He met her eyes and whispered his understanding, without ever uttering a word.

"Sure thing."

Much later, deep into the realms of the night; faces embossed with the etching of fatigue, creases from where a thousand smiles had burst like stars… Jack extricated himself from Kate's arms, leapt gracefully on to the rock platform at the entrance to one of the caves. He cleared his throat self consciously, waited as each voice died away, forty faces turning to him expectantly.

"Hey, everyone." He looked around the clearing, tried to remember the last time they had truly all been together. "Uhm, I just kinda wanted to get up here 'cause as you all know," Jack scratched his eyebrow, a subconscious tic. "We've been one down for the last week or so, forty down if you include everyone who's been out searching." He glanced at Kate. "It's maybe not my place to say so, but thank you to everyone who helped to get her back…" Jack's face cracked into a sad smile. "Just to let you all know we're safe here now." Now. The hidden message spread amongst the campers, each reaching understanding, that magazine one bullet down. "And I think it's safe to say…" He reached down, gently took Kate's hand, pulled her up accompanied by her protestations and the scattered applause from surrounding friends. "…that we're all pretty happy to have her back, safe and… getting better." Jack's eyes fluttered momentarily to the bandage that still covered Kate's wound, visible just below her borrowed layered black skirt.

"Woo, Kate!" Charlie's cheesy cry filtered through the night, and he and Hurley elbowed each other like school boys. On the platform, Jack rolled his eyes, his smile matching Kate's as she leaned into his strong, steady form, his arms unconsciously wrapping around her waist from behind.

"I'm not a big one for public speaking." Kate began quietly. She looked at each face in turn, these people she knew had hauled themselves from dawn well into the night, combing through acres of jungle, searching for any kind of tiny clue. "But Jack has told me what you all you did while I was missing. There's no way I can ever thank any of you enough." She swallowed, eyes clouding over as she thought of these few terrifying days, the endless disorientation, the darkness that suffocated like a blanket of ignorance. "And I just want to say that it means a lot. More than I can say right now-" Kate dragged the back of her hand over her eyes, the dampness a memory come to life. "But thank you. All of you." She met Sawyer's averted eyes as she said this, and gripped Jack's hand tighter, desperately trying to convey her gratitude to them both, words failing her.

Sawyer's hands met, over and over, beginning a huge ripple of applause that spread through the camp like a thing alive. Vincent barked, loud and excited, leapt around as each survivor stood. Applauding for Kate, returning… Jack, for never giving up, for saving life even as it slipped away. And mostly, applauding simply being all as one again, well and safe and _together_.

Jack kissed the back of Kate's head, slipped his arms from hers and grabbed a small lump of black from his pack off to the side. "Everyone!" He cried. "Get into some kind of orderly mass, short ones to the front… Charlie…" He grinned as the other man stopped in his tracks, pointing to Walt and Aaron in mock annoyance.

"Hey, I'm bigger than them, right!" 

Jack grinned, turned to Kate. "Go on." He looked up at her, slightly taller than him on the platform… hair caught in the breeze and the firelight, like a flame or a halo behind her. His angel.

She looked down to his hand. "A camera? Jack… where…?"

He silenced her, leaning forward and placing butterfly kisses to her lips until she pushed him back, laughing hard. "Doesn't matter. Get down there."

Kate shook her head, anticipating his words, lies coming to her lips all too naturally. "I've never been very good in photos. Very good at shutting my eyes. Blinking… smiling so wide as to frighten small children. Falling over, also a talent." She leaned into Jack, pressing her lips into his, unable to resist his pleading eyes. "Don't give me that look…" She whispered into his ear, nuzzling into him. Reaching down, Kate took the camera from Jack's hand. "You're the leader. You should be in it."

She pushed him away; avoiding those eyes which burned into hers, that look of longing to stay in her warm embrace, each other's form like coming home.

"You're beautiful." He whispered, his fingers sliding over her hand as he took unwilling steps away from that place by her side, that place where he felt he belonged more than anywhere before.

Kate gave a practised smile, pushed her leg out in a mock attempt to kick him away. She raised the camera, carefully pushing in the flash button until the tiny red LED light appeared on the back of the little plastic box. She stopped, centred the picture through the view finder… the fire, those smiling faces, Charlie and Hurley holding up cups of water like beer bottles. Jack. Jack, who she loved, who loved her. Jack, who was slowly restoring such long lost belief in herself. Jack, who called her beautiful everyday.

_You're beautiful._ She can hear his voice, even now.

Centre, say cheese, smile. Click.

_You're beautiful._ He says it everyday, and everyday she smiles.

Flash again, centre, say cheese, once more for luck. Smile.

A smile can mean so much.

Click.

_The days go by too fast, spiralling and spinning, wonderful miraculous days. Each one, I wake and expect to be back at the beach, alone, waking to a world where I forget why I even survived; or back at the cave, calling out for you, my voice rasping and hoarse. And instead I'm here, like some kind of waking dream. I surface from sleep in your arms, curved deep into you, our warmth one and the same. I turn to find your eyes upon me, and know you haven't slept more than snatches; know you stay up, just watching my slumber, waiting for the inevitable nightmares that come. I'm back in the cave, the shot rings out. I'm tied up, and the gun appears. I tell you the dreams ends in me falling and dying; but in truth I see _you_ slumping to the floor, clutching for me, and I always reach you seconds too late. Seconds too late to whisper I love you._

But then you're there, holding me through whimpers, releasing me from the iron grip of nightmares that won't fade. You rock me back and forth; hold me steady while my body wracks with terror. You sail me through the sea of dreams, those which always end the same, that ending I'm too scared to tell you.

I lose you.

In the morning, you never mention it. You ignore the concern in my irises, as I stroke violet rings under your eyes… press a morning kiss into my hair. Whisper in my ear.

"You're beautiful."

_Am I? I hear your pledge everyday; as I crawl from dream realms, locked and lost in your arms… as we walk hand in hand to the beach, or the golf course… your lips moving with the silent surrender across a crowded clearing, mouthing things I can't believe, things I can't acknowledge. Things you torch the air with, only for me to make a joke, pull you into a kiss, limp screeching into the water, spraying you with tiny waves. I'm not running away from you, I promise. I'm just running from the things that run into me, collide with me until the disbelief surfaces._

"You're beautiful."

_Am I? It's been months since I saw myself. Sawyer calls me Freckles, and you trace the scars forming which I cannot see, and all the while I am ignorant to my own appearance. Not that it matters. It's been a lifetime since I looked in a mirror, but it's been a hundred since I looked and did not feel sick, cringe, glance quickly away. It's my face staring back at me. It's my face, and it's me who killed Tom. It's me who my own mother screamed against, drawing hoarse cries from her dying, chemical filled body, to get away from me. Tom used to call me pretty, and I would stare for hours wondering where he found it, the spark I failed to see in myself. But that was before; that was being sixteen and insecure, unsure. Now… now, I remember washing my hands in that tiny cubicle on the plane, maybe a half hour before the plane went down, before the whole world changed; feeling the soap and water lather over dry skin, and daring to glance up for a second. Dark hair and dark eyes, the petite form I have always had, pupils too black and glazed to find a soul._

"You're beautiful."

_Am I?_

You don't see it, what I see. You don't see why I haven't let camera near me since Tom died. You don't see that, although I'm taking small steps to believing I'm good enough for you; that when you trace words with your lips upon mine, you mean them… I still despise myself beyond belief. I can't look in a mirror without feeling faint with the nausea that takes me over. I can't stand and smile before a camera, can't create a permanent record when Tom's little boy, his baby son, is growing up someplace with only photos of his Daddy to create memories he'll never know.

I'm lost. I'm what I can't bear to look at, to see; because I wouldn't see the face, the future, the beauty you do. I'm lost, and black, and ugly… and anything but beautiful.

You don't see it, what I see.

But then you'd look at me, tuck a tendril of chocolate behind my ear; find my eyes, and say the exact same back.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17 - Nightminds**  
_14/1/6_

_Her eyes are so blue, sometimes. Startling blue, stop you in the street blue, dive on in and find me out blue. She'll look up, and like a trick of the light those azure orbs grip you; beyond finding words, beyond looking away. You wonder, if you took the plunge, if you dived in, immersed yourself within her… if things would be as clear as that engulfing blue. If the barriers that still grip her, like a damn or a rock wall, would somehow all fade away._

**"Just lay it all down  
Put your face into my neck and let it fall out  
I know  
I know  
I know"**

She winced. He looked up, taking in the gentle image of her; eyes slightly creased up, teeth gripping the tender flesh of her lower lip, knuckles tipped white with her grip on the seat pads. Jack reached over, grabbed tweezers from the medicine cart, and as gingerly as possible removed the small lengths of severed green thread, careful not to disrupt the thin film of scar tissue forming over the wound. Scar tissue, so startling white next to the slight sheen of a tan it grew into; something so pure from what had just days ago been a mangle of blood, torn flesh, shrapnel... _fear_.

"All done." He announced quietly, tenderly reaching up to cup Kate's chin in his hand. "You okay? Sorry I can't offer you a stale sandwich and some nutrient filled Jello, just to complete the hospital experience."

Kate grinned despite herself. "Think I'll be able to forgive you." She intertwined her fingers with his, watching as their skin smoothed over one another's, the simplicity and intimacy of the moment all combining . "In time." She glanced down at the thick swelling of fibrosing tissue on her thigh, traced it with the fingertips of her free hand. It felt right, somehow, to have a reminder; peace after such chaos, Jack appearing like an angel, the days she had lost to fragments of memories. Memories her mind had taken, grabbed dreams of Jack and bundled the two together like pieces of a puzzle that didn't quite fit.

"It'll clear up a little more." She was suddenly aware of Jack watching her, of her hand still clutching his. Abruptly Kate realised how exposed her body was, just underwear and a singlet covering so much bruised flesh; those clouded marks fading from deep purple into yellow and somehow vanishing. Jack opened his mouth, closed it again. Kate let a chuckle escape her lips; it was the same expression he'd worn upon once walking in on her post-bathing in the water hole, her body slick with freshness and warmth as she lay drying in the sun. She'd heard a rustling in the bushes, cracked open an eyelid to the floodlit sky; and found Jack, doing his utmost to stop himself from staring, his mouth open against his will.

"Struggling with the doctor - patient relationship there?" Kate teased as he tried to look away now, knowing full well he didn't really have to.

Jack coughed, scarlet coming to his cheeks despite himself. "Uhm… I'll leave you to get dressed…" He turned to leave, stumbled. Kate continued to enjoy herself.

"'Cause that would be taking advantage…"

Jack stopped, did a one-eighty, reaching above his head with both hands for the top edge of the cave and stretched his arms while he matched Kate's gaze, a devilish grin on his lips. 

"Certainly would."

"Mmm. What if the patient made the first move?" She reached forward and up, expertly undoing the top bottom of his shirt with one hand.

Jack's breath caught as he moved ever so slightly closer. "Not sure on the Medical Council's views on that, now…" Tenderly, he knelt down so they were at the same level; lost himself inside the moment, that intoxicating lagoon of her eyes as they wrapped him up in her. Kate traced the outline of Jack's jaw line, sharp and softened all at once, the rough stubble she nuzzled into at night. She leaned closer, let her lips find his; could feel the quiver that passed through his form as she cupped his face, controlling the moment, the sheer intimacy of the world they created for themselves.

Hesitating, Jack let his hands find Kate's bare legs, his thumbs sketching tiny circles just above her knees as his fingers fell behind her lower leg. He wondered why he should waver, resting fingers there when just days ago his digits had been inside, moving muscle and vessels aside, frantic with time and loss of blood. His hands had been inside her, foreign and invading; and yet here and now, touching her as the man who loved her and not her doctor, his hands shook at the sensation of her skin. Jack moved his left hand further up, and delicate as a brush of air traced that thin filament of new flesh forming over such damage; nearly pulled away, overwhelmed by the closeness of the moment. Kate so nearly bare before him, breathing the same air; she outlining with a fingertip the same path a tear would be taking, the tear that would be falling at this very second, and every second, had this scar never formed. Had she not lived. She kissed him again, her lips never leaving his; the soft skin fluttering, delicate movements, and both losing themselves to it. She didn't delve her tongue deep into his mouth, wrap her legs around his torso… but just both being in the same pocket of air, the movement of her mouth like a droplet of heaven upon him, drowned him. The intimacy was so innate, so inborn into the very situation, into Kate's every move. Jack ached for nothing more than to never need move again, to live forever in this moment as the rest of the universe rotated around them.

It was minutes or hours later that one finally pulled away; time faded with the rest of the world, lost in the feel of the other so close. Kate rested her forehead into Jack, inhaling his warmth like a drug. He pulled her petite form into his own solidity; she wrapped slender arms around his waist, buried her face deep into the fabric of his shirt; dampness, remnants of anti perspirant, and something deep and hidden she could never put her finger on. Just Jack.

"Let's go to the swimming hole later." She murmured, her thumb outlining the creases of skin in his palm.

"Sounds good to me." Jack looked up at her, her eyes wistful and somehow far off.

He knew what she would say before the words ever left her mouth, those eyes which found his suddenly a greyer blue, a cloud no-one else would notice.

"I want to tell you."

_You wonder what hides beyond the grey, that smoke that clings like a barrier to what must be playing in her head. You wonder where she is, and who is there, and what happens; why she cannot stop herself from diving under to that dark place. Fleetingly, you consider the possibility of diving in her with there at those grey moments; gripping her, demanding answers to questions you know you have no right to ask. It's not for you. It's to try and bring her back, to resurface, so you can take such demons and drown them._

But you know, you knew all along; you can't follow her under. It's she who must surface, and she who must invite you in.

**"This world you're in now  
It doesn't have to be alone,  
I'll get there somehow, 'cause  
I know  
I know  
I know"**

Jack went ahead, Kate assuring him she'd manage the walk; barely a ten minute hobble from the caves, and yet he was terrified to leave her. He could barely remember the last time she hadn't been, at the very least, within his sight; except he could, all too clearly, as her screams rang out to him through the systems of catacombs. Eight days ago. Jack knew it was irrational, Kate's captor dead, but he couldn't stop the ideas that collided and compounded, a mantra within him. Sawyer had come to the caves for water shortly before Jack had departed, and Jack had taken him to one side, asked him to follow Kate discreetly when she came to join him.

"And then leave?" Sawyer had questioned, jokingly.

"If you wouldn't mind." Jack had raised an eyebrow, accepted the other man's banter with good humour; thanked him for the favour.

Her hands were shaking. Literally, jittering like crazy, couldn't do buttons up, shaking. She was terrified, of the words that sat like cancer at the back of her throat, threatening and erupting. She wanted them out. If the last two weeks had taught her anything, it was that life was too short to go on hiding all the scars she had so buried in herself. _It's Jack_, she told herself, time and again. _He knows the outline anyway. He knows you killed the man you loved. He knows that by all rights, you should be locked up. He knows._ She so wanted to pull off those layers amounted, the years of being alone, the million hours of aching with guilt and grief and things she couldn't ever say before.

And then at the exact same time, even as she opened her mouth to practise words she'd never said before; every nerve in Kate's body, every cell consumed with all her fears, screamed at her to gather up all her honesty again, take it back, protect Jack from herself. They were the same ones that repeated her stepfather's mantra, _"You're not good enough…"_… and while she could now ignore that, could now accept he was wrong, that she was indeed good enough for Jack and he accepted her for who she was… at the same time, Kate wondered if she'd ever accept herself. If she'd ever lie beside Jack at night, as each drifted into the same dream; and as he whispered that she was beautiful, believe him.

Jeans were just about manageable, now; Kate slipped a thin leather belt through the denim loops, cringed as she slipped the metal fitting into the hole one back from where she had worn it previously. Jack kept telling her, how she must regain the weight lost while she was held captive. She decided on her long sleeved white shirt, the one with thin vertical indigo lines and wide cuffs; literal minutes later, the buttons eventually all shakingly fastened, Kate swept half her hair up into a natural bun, the rest left to trail down her back in a chocolate waterfall. Wisps framed her face, and she dashed a small amount of Sun's lotus flower perfume on her wrists and behind her ears. 

_It's just Jack_, she told herself internally. _It's Jack, Jack who loves you, who you love._

But that was exactly why it would be so hard. That was exactly why, as Kate set out and tried to pretend she didn't notice Sawyer following her as she knew Jack would have asked him to; exactly why, when she tried to open her mouth, all that appeared was whispers of love, repeated over and over in a desperate attempt to convey how much she needed him. 

How much she needed him, and how she needed him to know; the person who did all those terrible things, she's not here anymore. 

_I buried her within me long ago._

Fish, flowers, fruit, blanket to sit on, small fire, camera, starlight, water, himself. Jack tried to think what he'd forgotten, his palms clammy at his sides. He needed it to be perfect, for her. He needed her to feel safe, wanted, understood. He needed her to know that he loved her, and that wasn't going to change for anything.

The déjà vu washed over Jack like a tidal wave. He could recall all too clearly sitting here all those nights ago, the minutes that ticked by as he sat serenely ignorant by the shore; as Kate was dragged unconscious through the jungle, the contradiction stark and wounding. He lost himself to the thought of it, tortured himself with it; retraced his steps with desperation, even now, even with her back and recuperating and lying in his arms each night.

And so when she appeared from the jungle like a hallucination, a slight limp evident, looking for all the world like the most beautiful vision he'd ever seen; Jack gazed to the heavens momentarily, and thanked the stars for bringing her back to him.

_It's dark when she comes to you, and eyes lose all blue and grey, and catch the amber of the firelight. You are almost nervous to see her; but then she looks to you with those flickering crimson eyes, and you lean to kiss her gently, never closing your eyes._

You never knew the colour of love before.

**"But I will learn to breathe  
This ugliness you see,  
So we can both be there and we can both share the dark  
And in our honesty,  
Together we will rise  
Out of our nightminds, and into the light  
At the end of the fire…"**

The yellow snapper and mango, lychees and guava were long gone. Jack took the blanket in his left hand, Kate's own hand in his right… together they made footprints in the small crescent of sand, as he led her to a wide tree trunk just above the waterline. The night was warm, crickets croaking somewhere near, the fire smouldering at just the right distance to provide background heat. Jack sat against the rough bark of the tree, leaving his legs bent and open for Kate to sit down in the space created. Carefully, she positioned herself so her right leg could remain straight; her left bent into Jack's own, her head leaning into his chest and the crook of his neck as he unfolded the blanket and positioned the material over their intertwined forms.

Jack brought his arms under the fabric, wrapped them around Kate's waist and rested his palms within hers.

"Remember when…" She took her turn in the game they had been playing all the way through dinner. "When I caught you checking me out, and you totally denied it?"

Jack blushed, and was thankful she couldn't see him. "Well…"

"Well what?"

"Well a guy's gotta play hard to get, Kate. And besides, I wasn't checking you out…" He joked devilishly.

She turned to him, pretending to initiate a kiss and then moving her lips temptingly out of reach, teasing him. "No?"

"Well…" Jack strained to find her face.

"Mmm?"

"Maybe just a little bit." He leaned into her and Kate failed to resist, allowing his lips to meet hers momentarily, his scent intoxicating.

"Ahem. Your turn." She pulled away, basking at the longing in his eyes in the firelight, and grinned.

Jack rested his chin into her hair, inhaling the purity and lotus flower emanating from her. "Remember when you made me my sling after the cave in." The words muffled into Kate's locks.

She gripped his hands a little tighter, drawing his arms around her. That day had been awful, probably the first day she admitted to herself how much Jack meant to her, as she frantically tore the skin on her fingertips, scraping at rubble to try and reach him.

Her turn.

Kate paused, opened her mouth, hesitated.

"…"

Inhale, exhale. Just breathe.

"Remember when I told you I killed the man I loved."

Jack's mind whirred, his breath stopped. He knew Kate heard, as halfway through as exhalation, suddenly that warm rush if air just caught in his throat, subconsciously. Caught off guard, he leaned into her ear, encircling her.

"You don't have to tell me." His whisper was like a lifeline. "I want to hear but only when you're ready… and that doesn't have to be today, or this week, or-"

"I want to tell you." Her whisper matched his, dissolved into it. "I need you to know."

And so she began.

There were no words that invited sympathy, no excuses, no blaming others. Jack sat quietly in the new position they had adopted, cross legged opposite each other, the warmth between them reflecting fear, trust, vulnerability, love.

It was amazing, how she could detach herself from the words as she told them. Each word was a truth - down to tears fallen, how she had felt, all those things she had done which coursed shame through her veins. There was nothing left out, no half truths, nothing glossed over to protect herself; but Kate said them at a distance, for she couldn't live the life again as she spoke it, for fear of breaking down and never completing the history, that history Jack deserved to hear.

_If you love me, you deserve to know me._

_If you trust me, you deserve to know all the reasons I barely trust myself._

_If you want to hold me through the night, protect me from invisible demons and long off threats, you have to know for me, that includes myself._

The mantras ran through her mind each time her heart pounded, begging her to stop; each time her brain saw those flames, or the blood spilling like water from Tom's chest, or her father's face as he walked from that hospital room. Every so often her words would dry up, desert her; Kate chewed on her nails, picking at dry skin around the cuticles until scarlet spots of blood appeared. Once Jack reached for her hands in these moments, conveying he was still listening, still cared enough to stay. She withdrew from him, lost within the person she used to be.

The firelight flickered, flowed, rolled like a dragon through the night air. 

"How's Richard now?" Jack asked, cautiously, when it became clear Kate was psyching herself up for part two. Kate shuddered at the name of that awful, cruel man, spoken in Jack's voice, the most caring person she had ever known.

"I don't know." She whispered it, ashamed, frightened. "My father never said. I think he knew it didn't matter. I couldn't come home, whatever the answer."

Jack nodded, taking in all the information she had blessed himself with so far. "Kate… he was a bad man. I mean a seriously messed up guy. And you didn't mean to do what you did. You didn't know."

She nodded across from him, tears in her eyes. "I know all that. I…" She tried to voice the words that hung somewhere in her mind. "I regret doing what I did. But I don't torture myself with it." _No, there's something worse, something so much worse. If only you knew…_

"Tom." She forced the word out, thick and precarious. Jack recognised the name, had heard her call it along with his own in fits of dreams during her sedation; recognised it at the person who also used to call her Katie.

"I knew Tom since I was in third grade, when we moved to Iowa. We were partners for everything in class, because our surnames were beside each other in the register." Kate smiled sadly. She could let herself relive this stuff, those happy days, that foolish innocence. "We did everything together, I mean everything - go camping in the backyard, dare each other to eat a worm, get chicken pox, make the dog a birthday cake. Everything you do when you're a kid." She glanced to Jack. "Now you know why I'm such a tomboy."

Jack smiled encouragingly. He was afraid to say anything, for fear of her suddenly shutting down.

"When I moved to Canada, we made a time capsule… stupid stuff, a tape of our voices, a baseball cap. Tom's toy plane." She caught Jack's eye. "We buried it under this huge oak where we used to go and talk, where I'd tell Tom all the stuff Richard used to say and do. God, we had this whole life plan, Jack. We were gonna get married and have nine kids, a little house someplace quiet, a pool table in the garage. A dog. It was all kid's stuff but I knew he meant it. He would have done anything for me…"

Kate cleared her throat. "We promised we'd keep in touch, and we always did, until… until it all happened. I knew he'd put himself at risk and I didn't want to make him chose to keep in touch or not, to put him in that situation. So I made the decision. Tom went and grew up, became a doctor, got married, had a little boy. I drove, back and forth across America."

The tears had started properly when Kate first said Tom's name, like reading a gravestone; they streamed down her cheeks in an endless flow, dripping to her hands. Neither she nor Jack made any attempt to stop them, catch them; Kate unaware she was even crying, and Jack knowing this was something she'd probably never be able to vocalise without tears. Her cheeks glowed wet in the hypnotic light from the flames. Overhead, unseen, the clouds glided together; the jungle moved with the wind, swaying with an approaching storm.

"And then… my Dad sent me a letter. He'd heard through an old friend that, that…" Kate sniffed, desperately tried to stop the barrage of sobs she felt approaching. "That Mom was dying. I had to go and see her. She was being treated at the hospital where Tom worked…"

She sobbed relentlessly as she told Jack of the hospital, digging up the capsule; kissing Tom even. How he gazed at her, and she knew how much he still loved her; the guilt, that even though it had only ever been jokes, she knew deep down that by ruining her own life, she'd let him down too. Where was the wedding, the nine kids, the dog? Tom loved his wife, his son, and yet she could see if she asked him to come with her, he would. If she needed anything, his Katie, he'd do it. Because that was just the kind of guy Tom was. The same kind of guy Jack was.

"And then…" She dragged breath through ragged lips, gasping for it as though she herself had just been shot. She could see it now, hear the shots ring out like warning bells; how she had forgotten that her own lack of caring for survival did not include Tom, too. She had willingly driven into the shots; trusting karma too much, believing if a bullet was to find them, it would find her. Her, the arsonist, the murderer maybe, the fugitive. Not Tom. Not innocent, pure, selfless Tom. Her, and it'd make everyone's lives easier.

"Tom… Tom got shot..." It was barely a whisper, but she knew Jack would have heard. She could see from the corner of her eye, him lurch instinctively towards her as the sobs wracked through her, barely giving her time to breathe.

"Oh, Katie…" Jack whispered, the words drowned in her cries. She shook on the spot, the same as she had as they had opened the case, and she had screamed those truths to him like offerings to a god.

"Don't…" She cried through sobs, pushing herself up and away from his opening arms. "Tom got shot, and I didn't. How is that fair, Jack?" Kate took a few steps down to the shore, as the wind picked up yet again, palm trees waving violently, the peaceful stars gone as angry clouds descended.

"Tom got shot, because he was in the car with me. And then I left him…" She was shaking now, her whole body wracked with the grief bottled up for so many years. Jack got to his feet, unsure; reached for her but she moved away, circling, lost in herself.

The rain started, inevitable, fat greedy droplets suddenly soaking the ground. It found the fire like a magnet, saturated the glowing embers, sharp hisses of smoke curling up as the flames died.

"Katie… It's not your fault, he wouldn't get out the car." Jack said it calmly, trying to work his soft tone through to her, past the memories and growing storm which roared over him.

"I should have stopped!" She screeched, yelling at him now, in truth screaming at herself. The rain soaked through her hair, tendrils clinging to her cheeks, jeans saturated in seconds. Across the metre or so between them, Kate screamed at Jack over the first crash of thunder. Her eyes were wild, endless tears mixing with the torrential rain.

"You might never forgive yourself for this!" Jack shouted across to her. "Yeah you should have stopped, Kate! But Tom's dead, and you didn't shoot him, and he died because he loved you too much to let you go alone!" Lightening shuddered down from the sky like a bomb, lighting their screwed up faces, Jack aching at Kate's reddened eyes, the torment raging through her.

Kate shook her head. "But why should I get to live, Jack? Why should I get to survive bullets, and car crashes, and a plane ditching into the sea!" She stumbled under the weight of her grief, the self loathing which dived within her. "Why the hell do I scrape through every time, when all I do is hurt people, get them killed, cause them heartache…" Another bolt of lightening screamed down, lighting in slow motion as Kate's sobs overwhelmed her, and she fell to the sodden ground, mixing her grief into the dirt, curled up.

Jack immediately fell beside her, enclosing her in strong arms, ignoring the slight resistance she put up. She shook beneath him, choking on her own tears for breath… drowning in herself.

"Isn't there a reason for everything? I don't know why Tom had to die, Katie, but I know it wasn't your fault. He was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I'm not condoning what you did, but you've got to stop blaming yourself…" Jack spoke loudly in her ear, the storm still raging over them, blunting words. 

"He loved you. He would have wanted you to live. He wouldn't have wanted you to do this to yourself. Katie… everybody does bad things. Your bad thing was not stopping. Tom's bad thing was not getting out the car. But the worst thing - the shooting - _you didn't do that_."

"I left him there." It was barely more than a whisper.

"But Kate… you carry him with you in your heart everyday. Constantly putting yourself through this kind of hell - it's not going to bring him back. It's not going to change anything. He would have wanted you to forgive yourself, to let him rest in peace. When he died… it was just his time. And it just isn't yours yet."

She held tight to him, rocking herself back and forth with the rhythm of the thunder. "But then why am I good enough for you? Don't you see, you're so good Jack, you're so perfect-"

"My bad things." He interrupted her. "I nearly let my father get away with being responsible for a girl dying on the operating table. I let a man die, when I knew he was going to die, and treated a les critical girl because it was ihim/I who had crashed his car into her. I delivered a baby naturally, because that's what the mother wanted, when I was a med student… I didn't question it even though I should have… and the cord was wrapped around his neck too long, and he's got permanent brain damage. Can't walk. Can't talk. Can't feed himself, because I was too afraid to speak up."

He could see her looking up at him, the tears still rolling as if on cue.

"We've all done bad things, Katie. It's when we mean to, that makes us a bad person. It's when we go out doing something calculated, that's when it's irreversible, unforgivable. You're not a bad person." These last words he said so close to her, fierce, trying desperately to make her see the truth.

"But I'll never see myself the way you see me, Jack. I'll never see myself as beautiful. I haven't let anyone take my picture, not since Tom died. It's not fair on him, or on little Connor…"

"But that's okay." He whispered now, pressing a kiss into her, the two of them sitting in the dirt and dark as the storm slowly faded away. "That's what we can work on. I know, it might take years, but I love _you,_, Kate. And this is a big part of who you are."

"Could you live with it?" Kate turned to him, so weakened with screaming and the torment thrashing through her. "Could you accept it, if even in years and years time, there's still a part of me that hates myself? That sees only ugliness, only black?"

Jack considered her question. "I'm not saying I'd be happy with it, or wouldn't try and make you see what I see But I'd accept it, because that's maybe just something you can't change totally."

The storm filtered off to the west, taking the thunder and rain with it. Together they, sat, lay, entwined as one in the starlight, traced with sand and tracks of tears.

"I get it now." Jack whispered to Kate, long minutes later. "I understand."

But her eyes were closed, at peace; soft rhythmic breathing filled and left her body. She was sleeping in the very lap of vulnerability, at home and happy enough to allow herself that luxury. Jack leaned down, kissed the top of her forehead, stroked hair from hiding that face, so full of a peace he hadn't ever seen Kate hold before.

"Sweet dreams." The stars shone down, hidden patterns in the sky; Jack bowed his head, leaned into Kate's fragrant form, inhaled her scent with the new knowledge that all the things she ached to hide, she had trusted him with. All those things left long unexposed, now his to mull over as the night made its slow descent into the morning.

_It's amazing… with eyes tight shut in remnants of dreams, they could be any colour. And you know now, no matter what causes them to water and draw tears, and change colour and bring up barriers; you know you can be here, and that she will let you._

**"But I will learn to breathe  
This ugliness you see,  
So we can both be there and we can both share the dark  
And in our honesty,  
Together we will rise  
Out of our nightminds  
And into the light at the end of the fire**

...And in our honesty, together we will rise  
Out of our nightminds  
And into the light... at the end of the fire…"


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18 - Time To Heal**  
_17/1/6_

_I can hear the mechanical scrunch of wheels spinning on gravel, just momentarily, before they gradually churn their way forward, accelerator down, lurching through the gears too quickly. The cars jolts forward like a dog on a leash, not the calm take off of a day trip or a ride to school. My body is flung against the seat in front, and our bags fall on to the floor; and I know something's wrong. Because she doesn't stop. She doesn't turn to yell at me for not having my seatbelt on. She fails to look at me at all._

We're moving then, and I scramble for the seat again, peer through dusty glass, desperate to see his shrinking form. I want to be Supergirl, power through that glass barrier and back for one last hug. I want to fly so fast the world spins backwards, and maybe I can stop Mommy and Daddy yelling at each other so much, maybe I can be better, maybe I can stop all this from happening.

But I am little Katie; not Supergirl, no powers, no way to stop the car moving away from where I long to be. I crawl as far as I can on to the parcel shelf, displacing boxes and scattered toys, those things long forgotten under the rubble of a life lived. My mother slams the car into third gear, violent, her mind elsewhere. My grubby little hand scrapes over the back window, clawing for a clear spot. I find it, place my eye right up to it; wink and wave at my father, who stands a broken man at the end of the road, a desperate smile painted on for me.

We turn the corner, and thinking we are out of sight, he collapses to his knees in the dust, jerking with sobs. And I imagine, how his tears and mine combined might turn that road into a river, and maybe we could sail away someplace new.

**"How long have I been in this storm  
So overwhelmed by the ocean's shapeless form  
Water's getting harder to tread  
With these waves crashing over my head"**

She woke with the sun, cascading like water droplets over her eyelids. The light split the sky, dark jealous of light, joining it. Last night flooded back to Kate like a drug or a dream; how many times she'd woken dreaming she'd told Jack it all, and needed no more courage, only to find her heart tripping and falling as the truth unveiled itself. Except this morning… there was no truth other than her own, lying between them like a sleeping child, now a part of them both. She shifted in Jack's arms as the moon faded into the sky; looked down at their clothed bodies pressed together, bare feet and arms covered in cinnamon sand and dirt. As if there had never been a plane at all, rigorous bonds of society's wrongs and rights slowing slipping away a easy as a fallen shoe. One side of Jack's face was coated in a fine layer of dirty tan sand, where he must have been leaning during the night; Kate's eyes flitted over his features, stubble and soft worn clothes and coated in sand. An angel fallen from heaven to grace the earth beside her.

She dragged her eyes from his sleep-filled form, the gentle motion of shallow breaths hypnotic. Gingerly, Kate lifted Jack's arm from over her stomach; expertly rolled from his embrace and laid his hand back to ground where had lain. He stirred momentarily; Kate froze, halfway to standing, waiting to have to explain her actions. Jack's solid form turned slightly, shifted position; but his eyes remained tight closed, the remnants of sleep hiding into the corners.

Kate backed away from him, her heart compelling her to return to the shadow of warmth that lay beside him, so clear she could almost see her outline in his arms. She reversed slowly towards the treeline, Jack gradually becoming smaller; the image of him sleeping in the open air as natural as the lagoon, as if placed there just for her.

In the quiet dawn, Kate found what she had been searching for… the roar of the ocean colliding with the shore, calling her name like a long lost song lyric, beckoning her to say goodbye.

She was gone. That was his first thought, grappling empty sand with his right hand, searching blindly for her warmth; the comfort of she entwined in him, his hand resting at the soft skin of her abdomen, tracing the arch of her hip. Where she should have been, nothing but air remained, tinged with what Jack convinced himself was her scent. 

_Don't panic._

_Don't panic._

His eyes flew open, jolted around the clearing without rhythm; the water empty, the shore deserted, the treeline still.

_Don't panic._Jack gritted his teeth against the fear rising like vomit within him, a torrent, a tidal wave.

_She's at the caves. She's taken a walk. She's gathering fruit for breakfast. She's…_

And then he saw it, the deliberate footsteps created in the wet sand at the mouth to the water; calm, slow steps. Jack jumped up neatly, walked the few paces to the waterline; crinkled his forehead up in puzzlement as he realised the steps were backwards. He smiled. He could see it now, Kate walking away from him in reverse, watching him exhale within a dream, leaving him a trail of her steps in case he woke.

Unsure whether to pursue or not, certain if she wanted him to come she would have woken him; Jack tentatively followed the tracks, his heart pushing him forward like a weight from behind.

_I wait in the bay window of our new house, this empty box filled with another family's smell, their paint choices, their knick knacks lying forgotten in dusty corners. I know what my mother wants me to do. She wants me to be excited, to run from room to room, to demand my toys and clothes, create the same mess she stuffed hurriedly into these boxes and bags. She wants me to be happy. She watches me, leaning against the doorframe, her presence a dark shadow over the exit._

"Katie…" I flinch. She doesn't call me Katie. With her, I am always Katherine. I want to scream at her to stop trying to emulate my father. I want to tell her, if she thinks I need him here, to go and get him. I stare out the window, refusing to blink for fear it will be that millisecond that he passes by.

"Katherine." She's getting annoyed. She's trying to understand me, but she can't. She's offered new toys, paint charts to pick out the colour of my new room, endless candy, fizzy soda I'm not usually allowed. She's tried hugs, shouting, threats of no allowance. I don't move.

She drops it like a bombshell. I can almost hear the impact as my world collapses in.

"This is Richard. We're… we're getting married, sweetheart."

I don't need to turn to know what he looks like. I can hear it in his voice, the syrupy flick of my name on his tongue, like he knows me. But you're married to Daddy,_ I want to scream. I want to wake up now._

I pinch myself, hard, sharp, fierce. And nothing happens, nothing but thin crescents of blood appearing to mock me, the acute pain a relief to the throb within my heart. She wants me to turn, to plant a picture perfect smile upon my face, to kiss his cheek. She wants me to be as perfect as possible, me this thing she is burdening him with. A step daughter. And something I heard in a film, watched late night as my parents raged, when I should have sleeping. The reminder of another man's fck.__

I don't move, don't turn, don't acknowledge him. I stare into the window, stare until my eyes are dry as skin, until the view blurs, until I am blind.

**"If I could just see you,  
Everything would be alright  
If I could see you,  
This darkness would turn to light"**

The form of it was so familiar. She couldn't imagine a day without rolling it between fingers in her pocket, like a lucky charm, like a coin waiting to be spent. She couldn't imagine knowing it was irretrievable, irretrievable forever. She didn't know how to say goodbye.

How many years had she known this tiny object for? Tom was eleven, twelve, when he took that flight; fifteen years gone, flown like paper to the wind. She could remember even now, his proud face that morning in home room, drawing that little grey model from his pants pocket like a trophy. She had made out like it wasn't a big deal, teased him for the grin on his face; all the while knowing, the grin was nothing to do with the plane and everything to do with seeing her again. All the while wishing for nothing more than to crawl on that plane with Tom, land somewhere far and deserted; away from those all irreparable things, the endless string of tears that never seemed to clear up.

It was chipped now, of course; paintwork battered through every other trip Tom took, through the endless wear of Kate carrying it everywhere she went on the island. Perfect imperfection, sharp corners smoothed by fingertips, nose bluntened from repeated 'test flights' on Tom's deck. _If only I'd known, all those years ago, how I'd be standing here and now with this tiny model in her hands; somewhere far and deserted, right, Tom?_ She could almost hear his reply.

_"Right, Katie. I thought the plane was dorky, anyways?"_

"I'm sorry, Tom." Kate whispered it to the wind, her tears already winding the well worn tracks down cheeks. "I'm sorry for not knowing how much I loved you until it was too late. I'm sorry for letting you down. I'm sorry-" She choked on a tear, the storm in her mind. "I'm sorry for leaving you behind."

_I'm sorry we never had the nine babies, the small place somewhere quiet, the noisy dog. I'm sorry I blamed you for the paint on my new dress at my ninth birthday. I'm sorry I stole your favourite mixtape and never gave it back. I'm sorry we'll never grow old together._

I'm sorry you'll never grow old.

She gazed to the horizon, trying to picture the future she had seen herself somehow falling into ever since meeting Tom. Even after the fire, and being on the run; even after Tom married another, had a child, started a whole new life… always, glimmering like a ray of hope at the back of Kate's mind, was the idea of pulling up to a house, and stepping into that life they'd always spoke of.

The life she could still imagine, even after Tom was laid to rest at a funeral she couldn't attend.

The life, that now standing on a long lost beach and finding that point where the earth met the heavens… that life that now, she could no longer see.

_I used to wait for the day, wondering when it would come; like having the right to vote, to leave home, to get married. I used to wander through a bad week, things piling upon me like weights, and still smile; because maybe that day will be today, maybe tomorrow._

The day when everything falls into place, when problems stop arriving like unwanted guests, when things make sense.

When I stop hurting, for the smallest and biggest reasons.

That day never came. Adolescence came and went, and adulthood arrived, and things didn't magically make sense as I had so assumed they would with growing up. Problems only grew bigger, worries worse, dreams more distant and far off then ever. The world didn't suddenly fall into place. A betrayal.

I used to wonder how I would get through life, with this new knowledge. I wondered if I should warn other people, this is a good as it gets.__

I used to think; if the pieces never fall in place, how do I know where to turn next?

The little metallic plane caught the sun as it sailed through the air… catching the light, falling through it, Kate thinking that was maybe how their own plane would have looked to a distant observer. She threw it far, the light object sailing easily through it's own path of air, particles parting to let it through. And then, as if it had never even existed, the little model dissolved into the waves; barely leaving a ripple or a splash, sinking slowly to the sediment and plankton far below Kate's line of sight.

Gone. Fifteen years, a lifetime.

Gone. Now nothing but a memory, a memory solely her own; Tom's memories dancing someplace far and deserted.

Gone. _Goodbye._

Kate stood in the surf, the tears finally drying, her feet slowly sinking into the sand. Her heart felt light, free, unbound in a way she hadn't felt for as long as she could remember… but her hand empty, lonely, cool. But for the first time, she it wasn't the toy plane she ached to hold.

It was Jack's hand.

A final glance to the water, and Kate turned back to the treeline; a sad smile and an image she could never have seen, flitting over her eyelids as she blinked like a true memory. Tom shaking Jack's hand, saying to make sure he looked after her; she standing to one side in a white gown, her ring finger matching Jack's in adornment.

**_"If I could just see you,  
Everything would be alright  
If I could see you,  
This darkness would turn to light_**

And I  
Will walk on water  
And you will catch me,  
If I fall"

He had found her at the waterline, gazing out to sea; looking for all the world as though she was walking on water, the waves just brushing her feet. He had been about to step forward, about to call her name; and then he saw the plane in Kate's hand, that tiny silver spark that had caused such a collision of words. Tom's plane.

Jack saw the intention, the plane and the ocean and the shudders of her shoulders in tears. Slowly, carefully, he turned and retraced his steps; covering them over as he went, aching to give Kate the privacy and peace she deserved for the moment.

The moment to say farewell.

It was maybe ten minutes after he got back to camp that Kate reappeared; he curled back in the spot where they had both lain, eyes closed in mock sleep. Her shadow appeared over him, blocking the sunlight; Jack cracked an eye open, feigning grogginess, squinting in the encroaching daylight.

He held a hand up to his eyes, cleared the sleep from them; gazed up at Kate's silhouette before him, captured like beauty in a photograph.

Jack didn't ask where she'd been, or when she'd woken up, or how her leg was. Neither said anything at all.

It was she who took his hand; pulled him to his feet, never once letting their eyes waver from each other. Kate walked backwards towards the water, both hands holding Jack's, her trust placed entirely within him to warn her of any obstacles. She stopped as she felt the wet sand beneath her toes; keeping Jack at a slight distance, let his hands go and reached up to the first button of his shirt. Slowly, almost tentatively, Kate followed the fabric down, slipping each button from its casing… exposing his chest to her, laying her hands upon him. Jack drew ragged breath through the love which overwhelmed him; allowed the sleeveless shirt to fall from his shoulders, forgotten. Kate traced patterns down his toned chest and abdomen, taking in the image of him, committing it to memory. Her eyes rose to Jack's again; found the deep trust within him, the vulnerability of them both, her own fears reflected back at her. She reached for Jack's hands; stepped closer to him as she placed the fingertips at the delicate ridge of her hip bone, inviting him in, letting him know it was okay.

His hands were shaking slightly as Jack met those brilliant blue orbs… the grey gone and departed, and only love filling her. He drew back the buckle of the belt, slipped the thin strip of leather through the belt loops; undid the jeans button and fly, his hands grazing that hidden strip of skin just below the waistband. As if synchronised, together they stepped towards each other; Kate's lips on Jack's suddenly, urgently, raw and needing. He slipped the denims over her slim hips; they descended independently down the rest of Kate's legs, and she stepped out of them, all the while finding Jack's lips over and over. He slipped one hand from her hip to her face, intertwining his fingers within those wisps of hair; meeting Kate's lips, gently capturing her lower lip between his teeth. He released her, and slowly her tongue found its way into Jack's mouth; she licked over his teeth, tangled with his own tongue, allowed it through to her mouth. The kiss built in intensity, rolling over them like waves… both lost in surrender. Jack's left hand played gently with the thin elastic at the side of Kate's underwear, twirling it between fingers, teasing her.

And then she was up; Jack lifted her, her legs going automatically around his waist, her lips never off his. It was gentle and rough, longing and raw, perfect and imperfect all at once… Jack's arms wrapped around Kate's back, his hands trailing up inside her shirt, feeling the delicate dot to dot of her spine as it flexed and extended while her lips moved upon his.

God, how he loved her.

Tenderly, he brought one hand up to Kate's face; stroked his thumb over her closed eyelid like a rush if air, cupping her cheek. He kissed her more softly, slower, tantalising… drew back, watched as her eyes opened, captured them within his own. Like a precious jewel, he laid her down to the moist ground; her legs instantly coated with sand. Kate watched as Jack kicked off his own jeans, the ankles catching and bringing a smile to her lips. Gently, he lay half atop her and half to the side; pressed butterfly kisses to her lips, trailing them along he jaw line and earlobe. Continuing the path, Jack's right hand found the top button of Kate's shirt… undid each fastening in turn, tiny kisses like engravings pressed from her sternum to just above the line of her underwear. She sat up to help him remove the shirt; their lips colliding, joining. Tentatively, Jack reached for the fastening to Kate's bra; slipped the metal hook from its ring, drew the elastic down each arm. Jack's heart thudded like a chant against his chest wall, the only sound he could hear… Kate lay back down, their lips still together, and he could feel small warm hands reaching the sides of his boxers, tugging at the elastic, removing the soft material and exposing him completely. He gasped at the rush of air, sending sensations through his body; Kate's hand trailing up his leg, deliberately avoiding him. Jack grinned, dragged his lips from hers; both hands gently gripped the elastic of her underwear, and Kate lifted her hips, inviting the gesture. And then she was bare before him.

Jack stopped, drew breath, needing to take in the image of Kate; hair dark and wild under her, chest rising and falling rapidly, lightly tanned skin with a sheen. He let his eyes travel the length of her body, always going back to those eyes, those eyes which held him hostage.

"You're beautiful." His voice was hoarse with emotion.

She didn't flinch, didn't blanche, didn't look away. Kate stared into him, long and true.

"So are you." _You're the most beautiful person I've ever known._

He moved over her, bare flesh meeting and warmth exchanged; her whole being held under his, protected. Jack lowered his lips to hers, tasting her again, tongues duelling and meeting… Kate's nails dug into his back as he leaned to press further kisses to her neck. Each time their eyes met, each time a gasp was exchanged, each time a new piece of skin was found to be memorised; trust grew with the vulnerability and things not said, the things each knew so innately that words became obsolete.

Kate's hand moved down, gripped his hardness… Jack's breath all left him at once as he trailed a hand down to that delicate curve of her hip where her abdomen ducked under the bone. Kate could feel it, then, a sudden urgent need to have him inside her, filling her, completely her; she grasped him, and Jack could see the sudden streak of wildness in her eyes. He positioned himself, slid down into her, the motion gentle and rough all at once; each drowning in their own desire and each other's, the love like a web binding them. Kate gasped as he drew back again, and in… her eyes met Jack's, their foreheads pressed together as the passion built within each.

"I love you Jack…" Kate's cry caught the air. She needed him to hear it, in that moment. She needed him to know, here bare and pure before him, that nothing had changed.

Jack withdrew, stopped; found each fleck of blue in Kate's eyes, all the secrets and memories and futures laid out for him like a map.

"I love you too Katie." He leaned into her, kissed her full and hard; glided back into her suddenly, her ragged breath breaking around him, their eyes never wavering.

Minutes later, both dissolved into passion… Jack about to withdraw as he felt his own climax building, and Kate gripped his hands above her head, eyes pleading with him not to. She began to pulsate around him, and together they lost themselves to the other.

_I know now, as I lie in this man's arms, spent and encircled in love. It doesn't matter that things rarely fall exactly into place, or that there's never a magical day were suddenly life makes sense. Time can't be turned back, and mistakes are made, and that is what regret is for. But I can't live for regret, for that isn't living at all._

I'll never understand everything, because no-one does. I'll make more mistakes, because everyone does. I'll hurt people again, and be hurt, because trust and vulnerability go hand in hand.

This much I know. It's okay. 

It was hours later that Kate finally stopped dozing, unfurled herself from Jack's wakening form, walked draped in his shirt to his small pack. Undoing the zip, she removed two mangoes, a small knife; and then her hand clasped something so familiar but foreign, forgotten and somehow found all at once. She hesitated.

A smile.

The mangoes off to one side, Kate lay back down beside Jack by the shoreline, water clutching at her toes. She went through the same motion as two nights ago, the little LED finally coming on after several seconds.

"Jack." She whispered.

"Mmm?" He murmured groggily.

"Open your eyes. And smile."

Their heads pressed together, Jack full of sleep, Kate grinning and far too photogenic for his liking, both full of dirt and sweat and memories made. And love.

Flash, smile, say cheese, click.

"Did you just…" His voice was a mixture, surprise, delight, caution. Jack turned to Kate beside him, a grin edging on to his face.

"Mm hmm." She gazed at the little black box. "Time to make all those memories of our future." Kate paused, stroked Jack's cheek beside her. "Time to heal."

He bowed into her, kissing her forehead, encircling her in his arms. For long minutes they hugged, each immersed in every memory since that first morning on the beach, that first invitation to play golf. All the terror and fear and concern, relief and trust, revelations and admissions of love.

"Time to get washed up!" Jack was up and carrying her to the water before Kate could begin to protest. She quickly dropped the camera to a patch of foliage, all the while screaming and kicking her legs against his chest, drumming hands over his back as he charged into the water, both diffusing into the pure particles. And then she was under, following the trail of his own descent through oxygen bubbles, lost in the underwater world created by nature alone.

"I hate you Jack Shephard!" Kate cried out, spluttering and breaking the surface, grinning wildly and laughing.

"Ahh…" Jack swam over to her, enduring the splashes of water thrown his way. He came up under her, her legs wrapping around his torso under the ribbons of water. Kate wrapped her arms around his shoulders despite herself. With protest, Jack pressed a kiss to her lips, grinning.

"You love me really."

**_"And I   
Will walk on water  
And you will catch me  
If I fall_**

And I  
Will get lost into your eyes  
And everything  
Will be alright

And everything will be alright"


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19 - This Is How We Find Completion**  
_19/1/6_

The night falls suddenly in the city. There's the bright sunlight, descending slowly… and then that thin length of elastic holding that ball of fire in the sky snaps, and the day plummets into night. 

Blink, and you'll miss it.

Blink, and it's as though the day was never here at all.

Blink… and you'll open your eyes to a whole new world.

A car screams down an empty road, taillights an over exposed photograph, following like a laser behind the stream of the vehicle. Outside an exclusive apartment building, a homeless man shivers in the ribbon of night; gazes up at those hundred squares of dark and light, a constellation, a sequence unseen. Someone flicks a switch, and the pattern changes again. Who turned that lamp off? Do those two silhouettes move in the throes of passion, or hatred, or both? Who lives in the apartment with the bright orange drapes, the neglected plant on the balcony, the forgotten towel which threatens to be snatched away by the wind…? And who lives at the very top, in the penthouse apartment… draped in the stars and ruling over the people below…

A siren wails, near and far, near and far… serenading the night. A car backfires like the crack of a gunshot, and somewhere close a child jolts as the mind incorporates the sound into dreams. Billboards flash stock market values to a desolate square; a Greyhound bus rattles through, shuttling people to somewhere much like this, their heads pressed into makeshift pillows against the windows. A girl meanders along the pavement, blocks from home, immersed in the illusion of silence.

It's any city in any world.

She wanders past the forgotten front page of a newspaper, caught by the wind hours ago and flicked to the sidewalk below. She doesn't look at the words emblazoned on the front in dirty grey. She is lost to the starlight, hidden beyond the glare of neon lights.

_'EIGHTEEN MONTHS ON: THERE'S NO HOPE LEFT.'_.

And in smaller writing, below.

_'Oceanic Airlines finally admits to negligence, and faces up to the deaths of 305 passengers and 15 crew members aboard the infamous Flight 815.'_

She walks on, humming a tune she can't name, feet skipping over each other in the remnants of a dance.

And somewhere so far from here, somewhere far beyond the sirens and simulated daylight and lives being lived out atop each other; a child's first cry fills the air, rising and falling as she slips from her mother's internal warmth into her father's waiting arms.

She took her first independent breath; this tiny rag of flesh and life, a person, the world changed forever as she slipped into the moment. Jack's vision blurred with tears, an endless stream as he cradled his baby daughter in his arms; shaking with emotion, he clamped and cut the umbilical cord, that fleshy length that had fed his little girl as she grew and made her way into the world. Kate, flooded with exhaustion and happiness, strained forward to see the infant… overwhelmed with the experience, hair slick to her forehead, eyes glinting with a queue of tears.

She couldn't begin to explain the feelings saturating her, filling her, spilling over… all those months of waiting to see if her suspicions were correct, that first appearance of a bump, the first kick as Jack whispered to her stomach deep in the night. And now, like a piece of her heart torn from her chest and held before her; Jack cradling their daughter, her little form slick and perfect in his arms. _This is my family,_ Kate thought, trying to capture the moment forever, knowing the image would never leave her mind.

"Jack… is she, is she okay?" Kate leaned forward on her arms, shaking with fatigue, craning to see her little girl.

Jack finished gently wiping the amniotic fluid from his tiny child, wrapped her in the clean white sheet Sun held out, swaddling her. Tufts of damp chocolate hair poked their way out from the fabric, and her cries subsided; her nose wrinkling up at the abruptness of being born.

Jack could scarcely talk; the motion so innately _Kate_. The smile started at the corners of his lips, reaching his dimples, his eyes, every inch of him. He choked on the tears taking him over.

"She's perfect." She was the tiniest, purist, most innocent thing he had ever seen. Jack could feel himself falling, further and further, falling in love with his child, and the mother of his child, all over again. And he knew, walking the two steps to this woman he loved more than life itself, he would never stop falling again.

Jack handed his daughter over, that minute weight of flesh and fluff filling Kate's arms and sitting there, the motion more natural than breathing. Her little red lips fluttered, blowing kisses to the air… tears streamed from Kate's eyes, uncontrollable, flowing like the love which inundated her heart. Jack sat down beside them both, her arms encircling Kate, her arms encircling their daughter.

_Our daughter._ Kate looked up to him, her eyes saying all she couldn't under the weight of the love overwhelming her.

_Thank you. I love you. I love you more than I can begin to describe, for all the reasons I cannot find words for. I love you for being you, for loving me, for giving me all you have. Your heart. Your trust. Your days and nights. Your world._

Our child.

It wouldn't be easy. There was no diapers, no immunisations, none of all those things they would have taken for granted in the real world. There was no hospital for first-time-Mom worries about all those things which would turn out to be nothing. There was no nursery, no school, so many things missing. They were terrified.

But there was love.

Two tiny eyes flickered open, and like a perfect combination of them both, they held her Daddy's chestnut colour and her Mommy's almond shape. Cinnamon flecks looked to them both in turn, watching these two strangers crying and staring at her and somehow knowing, _These are who will protect me. These are who will love me. Who do love me._

Jack leaned in… kissed his daughter's forehead, stroking those tiny wisps of hair, velvet. Grinning, his happiness spilling from him to the atmosphere, he found Kate; pressed his forehead into hers, their tears mixing as he nestled into her. His hand found hers under their little girl's head, their fingers entwined, protecting that tiny child.

"Thank you, Katie." Jack's voice shook as he spoke. "Thank you for giving me all this."

Kate looked from him, to their child, to Jack again… knowing she would never, ever run again.

"That's what families do."

The placenta was delivered, Kate fed endless amounts of fruit to restore her blood sugar levels; Jack all the while cooing over his gorgeous little girl in Aaron's old crib. Everybody came, sharing in the joy, Jack and Kate's pride, the new bundle of life created. There were endless congratulations, little presents, and so so many smiles.

Sawyer was last… meandering behind, kicking the dust and trying to hide the huge smile he felt encroaching upon him as he approached the cave. He shook Jack's hand, firm and strong; slapped him on the back in a brief embarrassed hug.

"Congratulations, man." 

"Thanks."

Sawyer leaned into the cot, watching as the tiny form splayed her arms and legs, floating through whatever babies dream of.

"Well I'll be damned." He smiled at Kate in the mouth of the cave, watching her daughter peacefully doze. "At least she didn't get your looks, Doc." He smiled, winked at them both; briefly stroked the child's warm cheek. She was Kate. She was the tiny, perfect, spit of Kate.

"She… she's beautiful." He whispered it, his words surprising even himself. He could almost feel himself melting; watching that bundle of innocence squirm, Kate's expression more at home and at peace than he had ever seen her. Sawyer nodded to Jack, who turned back to the baby as Sawyer wandered over to her mother.

"Well, Mama, you've got your hands full now." Sawyer's hands were jammed in his pockets, his eyes flitting from Kate's to the floor. Kate laughed at him, stood with a wince; wrapped her arms around his rigid frame. 

"Don't think you're getting out of babysitting duty just 'cause you're a bad boy." She laughed, as he hesitatingly reciprocated the hug.

"Freckles, I've got a lot to teach that little one." Sawyer smiled as he withdrew from the embrace. "I'm happy for you, Frec - Kate. I'm happy you're happy at last. That he's done - whatever is it he's done - to make you be like this."

Kate smiled, looked at him, slightly puzzled. "Like what?"

"Like you know how beautiful you really are. How good."

She smiled, looked to the ground, blushing and suddenly unsure. Sawyer had changed so much; she felt like a big sister coming back from college to find her little brother all grown up.

Jack watched as the two parted. He could see the ties that would bind them always, stretched between them like super glue; and knew his future wife, and little girl, would always have someone to watch over them from afar.

Kate wandered over to him, smiling beyond her own control. Jack could feel her eyes on him as he leaned over the cradle; knew exactly how her arms would wrap around his waist, her head leaning to the side of his back. Together gazing at the product of their love.

Jack murmured to her, aching to never leave the moment.

"Are you okay? In any pain?"

She replied as a whisper, never moving. "Just a little."

The baby mewed; stretched her tiny arms up. Kate broke into a laugh, moving closer to her daughter, watching her face scrunch in fatigue. 

"Well she wakes up just like her Daddy." Kate leaned into him as Jack's arms glided around her, his head coming to rest on her right shoulder, each unable to tear their gaze from the tiny form which now ruled their hearts.

Jack thought of all those endless conversation about names; lying on the beach with Kate's head in his lap, their hands drawn together over her growing belly. There had been hours of jokes; Cuthbert, Wilomena, endless varieties of Jack. The laughter had filled them up, bound them like the child between them. Each time a short list had been found, they had started all over again. And then finally two names for each sex remained.

Kate read his mind. "So…" She leaned down, gently cradled her waking little girl, supporting her head. The baby whimpered slightly, then found the layer of warmth against her mother's breast, nuzzling into the soft worn fabric of clothing. Kate stroked a tiny foot, those perfect toes, that skin so brilliantly new.

"Christina?"

It had been Jack's idea, honouring his father. Kate liked the name, and knew how much he had emulated the man, how much he regretted never saying goodbye. She could feel Jack move his head behind her; reached down to his daughter's hand. She wrapped four minute fingers around his pinkie, and Jack gasped with delight at the gesture.

He smiled, knowing what was right, seeing his little girl in front of him now.

"She's not a Christina. I don't want… I don't want to name her after him. She was born of us landing here, and finding each other. Of new beginnings." Jack kissed Kate's shoulder. "Is that okay?"

Gently she turned around, held their child in her arms so she lay between them both. Kate looked up to Jack, caught his lips, kissed him delicately. Her clear blue eyes burned into his chocolate pools, telling him all he would ever need to know.

"That's okay."

Thirty-eight faces looked to them expectantly, waiting. Thirty-eight smiles filled the clearing. Thirty-eight sets of eyes gazed at the little family before them, and thirty-eight hearts pounded with the wish that one day, they might be lucky enough to find such completion.

"Everyone." Jack stepped up to the platform and didn't try to hide the smile that filled his every pore. "I'd like to introduce you to someone."

Kate held the infant in her arms as Jack helped her up to stand beside him. He kissed both foreheads, automatic, unembarrassed before the crowd. He watched his daughter as she surveyed the room, hours old, and already with him wrapped around her little finger.

"This-" He found Kate's eyes, her almost imperceptible nod. "This is Adia Rhaegan Shephard. Our daughter."

It mattered not that there was no champagne, no sea of bows and pink paper to be torn from gifts. Thirty eight people leapt to their feet, cheers and whoops and joy cluttering the air. Sawyer pulled the camera from the corner of Jack's pack; crept closer to the couple as they both gazed at little Adia between them. Click.

Kate in front, both arms supporting her daughter, her gaze on the little girl's outstretched arms and wide gaze. Jack slightly to the side and behind, his right arm around Kate's shoulders, his left hand on his child's head.

All three lost in their own little world.

The celebrations lasted well into the night; games, songs, anecdotes from a life long forgotten. The fire danced in the middle of them all, drawing everyone closer… Kate sat in the remnants of heat, leaning against the cave entrance; her child in her arms, making silent promises.

_I promise to always be here for you. I promise to always love you, beyond anything you could ever do. I promise to protect you from all the bad things out there. I promise to never let you down, never be too busy to talk, never let you give up on your dreams. I promise to try and be a cool Mom. I promise to embarrass you constantly. I promise to never, ever leave you._

Jack sat down on the rock platform; a leg each side of Kate, she sitting on the ground a foot below. Gently, he pressed a kiss into her hair; rested his chin atop her head. His daughter slept, safe and protected, loved.

"Penny for them?" He whispered into Kate's ear, kneading his hands into her neck. "You need sleep, hunny. You gave birth today."

Kate grimaced jokingly. "I remember." She tilted her head back, leaning into Jack's lap until her eyes met his. "It's just… I love her so much, Jack. I can't imagine her not being here. I can't imagine…" Kate could feel the lump in her throat, swallowed against it. "I can't imagine not having you both." A tear escaped the corner of her eye, curling and carving to where dimples lay.

Jack leapt up, stepped off the platform; crouched in the dirt beside this girl, this woman, this person he loved more than he could even imagine. Who had given him all he ever wanted. Who, just sitting here with his daughter curled in her arms, broke his heart as it overflowed with emotion. He caught the single tear as it curved under Kate's jaw, kissed beside her eye as another fell.

"That's good. Because…" He ran the pad of his thumb over Adia's little chin. "We're not going anywhere. We kinda love you too much."

Kate grinned, sniffed back her tears, fell to the kiss Jack offered.

"I love you both too. More then I could ever tell you, Jack."

"I know."

They fell to an embrace, her arms wrapped around him, both gazing to the child they flanked. From across the clearing, eyes watched as the family gathered together, becoming one in the heat of the fire.

Completion.

**The End **


End file.
